I have good news from the Poetry Foundation! This great group has collected almost 50 of the poems that are listed in Appendix B of the CCSS, and they are available to you FREE. Links to the poems are found in the October 28 article Common Core State Standards Text Exemplars on the foundation's website. And while you're there, be sure to check out some of the MANY other resources available.
Let's say you decide to read Carl Sandburg's "Fog" with your 4th grade class. By clicking the Related Content tab above the poem, you'll find
- a biography of the poet
- links to 34 of his other poems
- links to 15 audio and podcasts of his poetry
- two archival recordings of Sandburg, from the mid 1900s
Update: Last August I wrote about the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's webpage that listed free, online sources for the CCSS text exemplars that are public domain. Unfortunately, that document has been taken down, so I deleted the post from the blog. I hope this one helps with your poetry lessons!
