I like this book for a 3rd-5th grade classroom since some of the poems are not very literal and are aimed for older students. In a 3rd grade class I would use this to teach the students about reaching for the stars and reaching your goals and dreams. Although the majority of the poems are figurative and not realistic I would pick a few like, "If I had the Power of Wings" and "For Poets" that talk about all the things they would do if they had wings. I would discuss with the students how flying kind of represents freedom because you can go anywhere and how these poems are encouraging you to explore and try news things. I would then have them individually draw a picture of something they would do or somewhere they would go if they had wings. Then I would have them write a paragraph about what they picked and why they picked that. If I used this for a 4th grade class I would focus more on the poetry and the similarities and differences between the poems within the book. They are all about wings and flying but they are all written differently. I would start out as a class and have the students pick two poems they wanted to compare and contrast. I would first have them pick out the things they noticed were the same about both poems, like stanzas, rhyming, repletion, etc. After they found similarities I would explain how those are typically the characteristics of poetry and how it was different than prose writing. Next I would have them pick out some differences like, how long the lines were, line breaks, punctuation, etc, and explain how although there are common characteristics of poetry not all poetry is the same.

The poems are a collection by different authors. They are all centered around flying or being in the sky.

This variety of poems about flying was very interesting. I enjoyed the entire thing. Hopkins selected an excellent collection of poets and the theme stayed consistent throughout the text. A lot of variety, though rhyming text seemed to be the most used form. ( )

The drawings were exactly what I had in mine. It inspired me and I wanted to fly. It reminded me the dreams I had when I was a child. Also about freedom