Extra Entry: Expanding On Poetry In My Classroom

 

A Low Amount of Poetry In My Classroom and What To Do About It

    As a first year teacher in a grade level that I have never taught, observed or substitute taught in, I was very overwhelmed at the beginning of this school year. I was simultaneously learning what students at this grade were taught, how the school functioned, information about 4th grade state tests, what this age group did and didn't like and I was learning about my students and who they were as people. Let's just say that poetry was not a main focus of mine curriculum wise and I do feel sad about this. Now that I have a good understanding of many facets of fourth grade, the school, and my own teaching style, I feel as if I can start planning for the end of this school year and next year with more genres in mind, especially poetry. After reading the Tompkins chapter on poetry and being apart of the poetry genre expert presentation, I feel very excited to implement more poetry into my classroom. 

    To start, I was so thrilled with the poetry genre group's use of a poetry coffee house. I walked into the room and I felt relaxed, comfortable, and excited to sit in the author's chair. I loved the hanging lights, food, chairs in a circle, low lights, the signs, the microphone and the author's chair. This was immediately something that I thought I would love to include in my classroom. I thought about having one of these every two weeks and each time it would be slightly different of a title based on the genre we were studying in our writing workshop. I also loved the "I am" poems in the Tompkins chapter, I am planning on doing that at the start of every school year to learn about one another. I am also planning on doing this at the start of my guided reading groups to once again learn about one another. I included a picture of a template that I plan on using for the I am poems above. Another lesson I plan to implement is going outside and collecting objects and then crafting a poem about the objects. I was thinking that maybe the poem could be the 5 senses, a free verse poem, "If I were...." poems, or "I wish" poems. I was thinking that we could do multiple poems about the objects possibly and that students would be really engaged for this.

     I also appreciated the poetry genre group for showing us a poetry generator that could be used to virtually create poems. I was thinking of making this a choice for after students finish their must do's during ELA or guided reading. I will also be doing a poetry unit, adding poetry to our writing workshop, reading poems for ELA, and reading poems for read aloud's. I think that poetry can intimidate many students, therefore starting the school year with simple poems about themselves and immersing them into poems in many ways, students will see that they don't have to feel intimidated. I am hoping that all of these ideas will show students how fun poetry can be and they will have meaningful experiences with it.