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Poems as Stories—Memories Illuminating the Lives of Experienced Early Childhood Teachers

In this essay, the author describes his curricular journey in creating a course on narrative inquiry and memoir for experienced early childhood educators. The author recounts the steps he took in selecting reading texts and activities for the course, and emphasizes the value of using poetry as a form of narrative for helping early childhood educators represent and understand key experiences and influences in their personal and professional lives. In presenting examples of the educators' original poems, the author points out the value of poetry to recount and illuminate small moments of experience, insight, and reflection for early childhood educators. Relevant background theory on the role of narrative and inquiry in early childhood and critical intersections between story and poetry are also provided. The author invites commentary todmeier@sfsu.edu; a copy of the syllabus on which this article is based is also available upon request.