April 14th is "Poem in Your Pocket Day," and we here at the Visual Thesaurus don't want to leave you unprepared with only a bit of lint to line your pockets. This week's worksheet can inspire your students to write word association poems with the help of the VT.  Continue reading...

I was recently asked by a young and annoyingly successful poet how I thought language learners dealt with the special demands that poetry puts on the reader, and the discussion that followed led us into a marvelous land.  Continue reading...

Last week, in honor of National Grammar Day, editor Mark Allen hosted a contest for grammar-related haiku. The winner was submitted by Gord Roberts: "Spell-checkers won't catch / You're mistaken homophones / Scattered hear and their." Read all the submissions on Mark's blog here, here, and here.

"Well formed haiku bring / National Grammar Day glory / tweet your best today." In advance of National Grammar Day on March 4th, editor Mark Allen is hosting a haiku-writing contest. Submit your grammar-related haiku by posting it to Twitter with the hashtag #GrammarDay. Deadline is 10 p.m. on March 3rd! Details here.

As we settle into 2011, Visual Thesaurus contributor Bob Greenman has been reflecting on the past year of writing for the VT. Join Bob as he takes a versified look back at how he has been inspired by his "lexicon-muse."  Continue reading...

We recently spoke to Nancy Mack, author of Teaching Grammar with Playful Poems, to find out how she was inspired to use poetry as an innovative entry point for teaching grammatical patterns to young students.  Continue reading...