For this weeks entry I spent time reading some of my peer’s
blog entries. One that struck home for
me was Entry #7 from The Literally Literacy Blog. In this entry she speaks about what she
learned as she researched and read more about the genre of poetry. This struck me, as poetry is a genre that I
feel uneasy with. As a kid I thought of
it as “easy,” as it can sometimes be shorter than a narrative essay. But now that I am a more knowledgeable
writer, I feel that poetry is not “easy” any more, and I often struggle writing
poetry more than writing longer texts.
This is probably due to less experience with this genre. This blog entry offered many suggestions that
will help me feel more confident as a teacher of poetry, as I work on becoming
a more confident poet myself.
Ashley was sure to explain early on in her entry that poetry
does not need to rhyme. As a kid, I
always thought this. I liked how she
suggested that teachers stress that the message of the poem is more important
than the rhyming. She also suggests that
teachers share a wide variety of poems with students to show them that there is
much more to poetry than rhyming. I also
liked her suggesting starting with a simple formula poem to help ease the students
into the genre and help build up their confidence as poets. This suggestion made me think of the exercise
we did in this class the very first day.
The formula poem of “If I were in charge of the world” would be a great
starter activity for a poetry unit. This
activity would be fun for students, engage them, is about something that is
meaningful to them, and will show them that they in fact are poets!
I also really like the examples she provided to incorporate poetry
into other subjects. I think this would
be a great way to reach the different learning styles of your students, and
would be a great option when the teacher gives different choices for an
assessment. Lastly, her suggestions for
grading poetry were great. She suggests
using a portfolio and letting students select their best work for
assessment. I also suggest using a
rubric at times, and focusing on the meaning of the work and the effort the child
put into it.
You clearly chose a quote from Ashley's blog that struck a chord for you, Lindsay. How did this help you to gain further insight into the information and descriptions Tompkins provides in her chapter?
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