The Uses of Poetry in the Classroom

Objectives

I speak of fluency, phonics, comprehension, and vocabulary and writing, but as they are taught they will overlap. Language Arts necessarily promotes this as though they were separate things, although they overlap in practice. Thus my objectives for this unit will overlap, but I will discuss them in the context of each skill in turn. I will also include the Pennsylvania Standards, and cover indirect skills that the students will acquire.

Let's start with fluency. The student must be given the opportunity to practice the skills that reinforce this. The student will be given the opportunity to build dialogue through discussing the poems. This dialogue can be with their peers or with the teacher. When they are reading the poem from the chart paper they will have the opportunity to practice tracking print. They can recognize environmental print or print from the sentences in the alliterations of the poem. What will also assist with this is how they express what they read. This expression can be through tone and tempo. The poems read aloud in choral and echo form as well will help the student. Oral fluency is so important at this grade level, because it is a major contributing factor in reading.

The next skill that I will be trying to improve is vocabulary recognition. Some of this will be taken from writing (inventive spelling) and some of it will be taken from the poems. Most of the vocabulary will be taken from the alliterative sentences. Some new words have been dispersed throughout that lesson. The students will be able to use them in classroom conversation. The students can also use the new words in a sentence and in other situations related to writing.

The Phonics will be taught through sounding and blending the poems on the chart paper. The alliterations will help with remediation of the letters of the alphabet. The building of words with the phonograms will continue to help the students sound out the words. This exercise teaches decoding by analogy. They will be able to do "oddity tasks" in relation to word formation. This means discriminating which words rhyme and which words have the same sounds or different sounds. This will be through some of the questions that will be asked. Oral blending will be especially important because the student can write while they blend their sentences in speech. You should be able to see some evidence of inventive spelling.

The writing objectives are simply to be able to go through the basic writing process. They will go through the writing stages and publish their papers. They will be able to do drawings and relate them to a poem. A reflection related to their writing will be used in the form of a conference. The students will be expected to go through the process of writing. First, there will be the pre-writing, planning, brainstorming and gathering information. This will take place through the discussion of the poem. Then the student should draft the illustration and the writing that is required. The teacher helps with this. Now the students can revise or edit their work. This is like re-writing or rearranging. Then proof read. Make sure it's what should be there. The publishing should be done at this time.

The Kindergarten Writing Portfolio Requirements are: one section for reading and the other section for writing. I will do conferencing with the student after each section is published.

The reading exhibit demonstrates a student's ability to comprehend and respond to text. This is in the form of a Book Log. All of the books used for this unit will be added to this log. The writing exhibit is a response to a literature sample and a personal narrative. The writing exhibit demonstrates a student's ability to write in many modes. They usually do a narrative and a response. They must also choose two more pieces of work. They can be descriptive, how-to, story, informational writing or a poem. The writing can be done as a whole class interactive or in grouping or individually. I plan to meet all of these objectives in this unit.

The content standards for the Pittsburgh Public Schools apply to:

Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening:

1. All students read and use a variety of methods to make sense of various kinds of complexity.
2. All students respond orally and in writing to information and ideas gained by reading narrative and informational texts and use the information and ideas to make decisions and solve problems
3. All students write for a variety of purposes, including narrating, informing and persuading, in all subject areas.
4. All students compose and make oral presentations for each academic area of study that are designed to persuade, inform or describe.

Arts and Humanities:

1. All students describe the meaning they find in various works from the visual and performing arts and literature on the basis of aesthetic understanding of the art.
2. All students produce, perform or exhibit their work in the visual arts, music, dance or theater and describe the meanings their work has for them.

Mathematics:

1. All students apply the concepts of patterns, functions and relations to solve theoretical and practical problems.

Citizenship:

1. All students demonstrate that they can work effectively with others.
2. All students demonstrate their skills of communicating, negotiating and cooperating with others.