Poetry & ELA (For 10-17-17)

For the longest time, even as an avid English explorer, poetry has been a subject that I've been nervous about teaching. Not necessarily because it can be difficult to get students interested in it, but sometimes I feel like I'm not even particularly good and writing or analyzing poetry. That's okay though, because I know I'm not perfect, but I want my students to be able to leave my class feeling empowered that just hearing the word "poem" won't make them feel like it's a text that's impossible to read.

For me these two readings really helped calm my worries about teaching poetry. In fact I found golden nuggets from both blog and Christiansen. In regards to the blog the author did a really good job at convincing me that poetry can be found anywhere even through everyday moments. For example, I found the poem about the orange juice and the grocery store very intriguing, even though the inspiration was from a seemingly mundane experience. As for Christiansen, I had one of those lightbulb moments after she laid out the "holy trinity" (poem, narrative, and essay). Instead of having poetry as a unit, it's peppered within the curriculum along the way. This could be especially cool with themed units, so that the students could experiment with writing and reading a variety of different poems. It makes perfect sense IN my head, because even when I was figuring out that I wanted to be a teacher in high school, poetry united seemed dreadful at first.

Going forward, I'm interested in researching more strategies and styles of poetry that I don't have as much exposure to. For example, I had never heard of "found poems" until this year, and I am so fascinated by them that I want to give them a try in the classroom.