Entry 11: The Magic of Poetry Night

 

Last night's genre workshop may have changed my mind about poetry forever. Before digging deep in this course, I ranked that I was the least bit interested in completing my Genre Expert Project on poetry. I have always found it to be the hardest genre to teach students and I think that's a true testament to how much I struggled with it myself. Tompkins (2012) says that many students have misconceptions about what poetry is. Too often, they think poetry has to rhyme or they're unsure of how it should look on a page (p. 171). I absolutely fell into this category throughout my education and I'm so excited to say that my own misconceptions have been debunked!

During the Poetry Genre Workshop, I really enjoyed writing the 5 senses poem about somewhere special. I would love to try this with my future students as well but have each student write a 5 senses poem about a shared experience. The Poetry Genre group did a great job scaffolding this activity with the graphic organizer and then the formula poem format. I was absolutely 'wowed' by the Poetry Coffee House format that we were introduced to last night. It created a "vibe" for poetry and it will definitely be something my future students will look forward to. I think it'll be important to establish 'poetry coffee shop' norms and expectations in my classroom in order for it to be the most impactful. String lights, juice boxes, and little bags of chips should really give poetry share the the slam it deserves!

According to Tompkins (2012), many teachers begin with a formula poem because the form makes the writing easier for students who don't think they can write poetry. When I teach the poetry genre to my future students, I absolutely plan to start with that! I will never forget our first night of 618 when Dr. J had us write the formula poem "If I Were in Charge of the World..." after we completed a brainstorming activity. I had no idea while brainstorming that some of my ideas would be inserted into a poem and I think that was a good thing! I think if I knew I was poetry brainstorming I would have gotten "hung up" on ideas. In my future classroom, I would love to use the same instructional strategy (structured brainstorm followed by formula poem). Leaving the formula poem end game out of the brainstorming phase will definitely ease some poetry jitters. 

References

Ferguson, K. (2017). A poetry coffee house: creating a cool community of writers. Reading Teacher,                     71(2), 209-213.