Review: School Poetry

Title: Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems

Author: Kristine O'Connell George

Illustrator: Debbie Tilley

Citation: George, Kristine O'Connell. Swimming Upstream: Middle School Poems. New York: Clarion Books, 2002.

ISBN: 0-618-15250-4

Awards: IRA-CBC Children's Choice Award 2003, Rose Diaz Pinan Reading Aloud Collection, World Book Encyclopedia – Outstanding Poetry Collection 2002

Review: Swimming Upstream takes a humorous look at the daily lives of middle school students. Featuring a variety of poetic forms including haiku, free verse, and acrostic, Kristine O'Connell George tells the tale of a sixth-grade girl making her way through the dreaded first year of middle school. Touching on everything from locker trouble, making friends, the first school dance, changing in the locker room, and homework, George takes a light-hearted tone in each of her short poems as she reminisces about circumstances every middle school student (past and present) can relate to. This easy read will appeal to upper elementary-aged students as they anticipate the changes to come as well as to middle school students who live out the antics presented in Swimming Upstream on a daily basis. A comical, yet well-written themed collection, Swimming Upstream is a quality addition to any adolescent's reading list.

Potential Use: Sixth-grade students will especially relate to the same-aged protagonist in Swimming Upstream. This collection of poems would lend itself to fun activities both during the first and last week of a student's sixth-grade year. During the first week of school, educators can read some of the first half of Swimming Upstream aloud to students and have them discuss the challenges of being new to middle school. One poem all students are likely to relate to is the haiku entitle Locker:

Locker
I've got your numbers.
Twelve…eleven…twenty-one.
Why won't you open?

After sharing this poem and others, have students write a haiku about their first week of middle school experience. Creating a haiku is a short activity that is both fun for the writer and the audience and allows students to realize they are not alone in their worries, fears, and struggles about middle school. Collect these haikus and save them until the end of the year, when students can reflect on how far they've come.

During the last week of school, educators can read either the entire collection or some of the second half of Swimming Upstream aloud to students. After doing so, pass out the students' haikus from the beginning of the year and discuss how they've matured and changed in the months that have passed. Have students write a poem in a format of their choice reflecting on their sixth-grade year.