The Uses of Poetry in the Classroom

Strategies

There are many ways to approach the teaching of poetry. When you are teaching poetry in the middle school, though, there are some non-negotiables. One non-negotiable is that the poetry must connect to the students in your classroom. This first non-negotiable brings us to another very important one. The teacher must be a responsible educator by being responsive to the needs of his or her students. The teacher needs to know the students well enough to know what poetry will connect. Some of the choice of poetry for the class will be easy, simply owing to its appropriateness to the adolescent's degree of development. Other poetry choices need to be based on more specific facts about the students themselves, such as gender, demographics and interests. The list of poems I use in my classroom has been developed over several years and is ongoing. Of course a very good way to add to your list is to get the students' suggestions.

I always begin my unit by developing the "poetry friendly" classroom. Both Heard and Koch advocate the importance of the warm, inviting atmosphere of the room to ensure the success of the lessons. Such an atmosphere allows for the students to personally connect, interpret and express ideas about the poems. The "poet within" is developing and being inspired in a safe and friendly atmosphere. The poetry classroom also moves the students to be active in the room instead of passive.

The student is a key factor in developing the poetry classroom. The class develops the poetry classroom together. I have taken several of my ideas from Heard and Koch, and added my own. Throughout the development of the room, students will often want to add their own ideas too. The poetry classroom is ongoing as you move through the unit. Additions and changes will be made according to the progression of your lessons and the ideas of your students.

This unit is planned for the second quarter, allowing you to get to know your students; but this should not be the first time they are exposed to poetry in your room. Your focus is on poetry over the next several weeks, so the classroom should now surround your student with poems, poets and poetry.

There are several items to consider when developing your poetry friendly classroom. The room must allow for your students' minds to stretch, explore and grow. They must be energized by what is around them. They must be inspired by the subject possibilities and their probable success with the poetry. Developing the classroom is a cooperative effort between the teacher and the student.

I always begin with words. We have a bulletin board that only contains words, phrases or excerpts from poems. I call this my word wall, word center," vivid vocabulary" or "gutsy language". The featuring students as well as the teacher should be adding to the words. Words are put on sentence strips or construction paper and posted on the bulletin board. There should be words for emotions, objects, places, people, things, and pictures or just random words cut out of a magazine or newspaper. Your board is becoming a bank of words the students can use when they need ideas for their own poetry. You can also include critical vocabulary terms such as "figurative language" on your board. This is growing communal board, and all of the students must contribute, even if only one or two words. I always make contributing to the board one of their homework assignments and the students always bring in several words because they want "their" words up in the room and used in the poems they and others will write.

The arrangement of the words is random but as you move along in your unit the placement of the words can change. Quotations, idioms or even phrases from greeting cards can be a part of your word wall. It's important that you as the teacher also add your words to the wall!

Near the word wall I place my poetry book center. All of my personal books are in this center, as well as any I can get from our school media center. The more books the better. Students can bring in their own books too as long as they are labeled with their name. I do not allow the books to be checked out. They are for the classroom only during our unit because the books are used in just about all our lessons. I also include picture books in our poetry book center. The stories and pictures lend themselves very well to the writing of poetry.

The book center is used for the following activities: finding a favorite poem, finding an example of a specific form of poetry, examples of figurative language, poets' names, poems with specific themes, poems about people, places or things, poems you want to write about or new or unknown words you find in the poetry books. Sometimes we just have "free" reading time, during which the students are turned loose in the book center and, after seven to ten minutes, asked to share a new poem. If you are able to get them, area rugs and pillows will add to the atmosphere of the center and the students will be asking to go to the center not only because of the books but also because of the relaxed nature of the area.

I also have a poem center in my classroom where we post poems on a bulletin board. This center includes my favorites as well as the students' favorites. The poems can be their own or that of a published author. This part of the room is usually a homework assignment also and I do not limit how many poems the students can bring into the classroom. These poems are put up for display in the room, and we spend time reading them before they become part of our poem center. You should try to have a good portion of a wall to devote to this center, as it always fills up fast and then overflows!

There should be a writing center in the poetry classroom. This is for independent writing. The writing center is tucked away in a corner of the room out of the flow of activities. There is a large table with two or three comfortable chairs and maybe a large towel or carpet square for those who want to sit on the floor. Students can use their own writing materials or the materials in the writing center. I always have pencils, pens (a variety of colors), crayons, markers, colored pencils, lined and unlined colored paper, construction paper, glue, scissors, stencils, newspapers and even magazines for the students to use when writing their poetry. It works well if there are at most three students writing at one time. Students are allowed to work in the writing center according to their progress through the unit, their writing ability and their ability to stay on task. They really need strong personal focus to work independently in the writing center. At some point during this poetry unit, all students should be encouraged to work at the independent writing center.

The word wall, the poetry book center and the poem center surround the student with the medium of poetry. The more they are surrounded by poetry the more comfortable they will be with poetry. The room, the comfort level and the materials they contribute draw them into the class and draw them into being active participants in their education. The room is now truly theirs, and they want to succeed in it. The teacher and the students, by developing and designing the poetry classroom together, set the tone for the unit. Students have a say in the organization of the room to make it truly theirs. Because they have designed the room, they want to keep going, keep reading, adding and designing more! That is one of the best parts of this unit; my students want to take part in the class! It doesn't get much better than that when you are a teacher.

All of the students are required to keep a poetry notebook throughout the unit. I call it a poetry journal because the word journal makes the book more personal and less like school work. The students put everything in this notebook, including the notes they take on the mechanics and basics of poetry, classroom warm-ups and their own poems. Their journal also contains their personal reflections, and thoughts about the progress they are making. Each student's journal should be labeled by sections. The sections are warm-up, class notes, class activities, creative ideas, favorite poems and their own poems. This journal is checked every day and will be used every day. I stress the importance of this book from the start of the unit. They also record their contributions to our poetry classroom in their journal. Much of their assessment is contained in this book, so I do encourage them to guard the privacy of their book and be proud of it. But the students rarely need such prompting because their personal contents of the book make them possessive of it.

The first part of my unit is meant to be an introduction to one concept of poetry. I cover the definition of poetry, the types of poetry, the parts of poetry, how to read poetry, figurative language and analyzing the meaning of poems. When beginning to analyze poetry, I like to use Gary Soto's "Oranges." This is a very seventh grade friendly poem. It's about a boy and a girl meeting and then going for a walk. You can discuss the emotions of the boy or the interaction between the boy and the girl. Also, Soto uses many colors in this poem and you can ask what the use of colors adds to the poem. There is figurative language in the poem, too. You could ask, what figurative language does Soto use and what does that add to the meaning of the poem? Just the boy- girl scenario alone will get the students involved in a discussion of the meaning of this poem.

The second section of my unit is aimed at developing the student as a writer of poetry. I use several strategies to develop the writer. Students write poems modeling poems I choose. A good poem to model is "This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams. Another is excerpts from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman. One other poem students respond well to is "Me" by Walter De La Mare. Also, students are given several different stimuli to gather ideas for poems. These include instrumental music, words from the word wall, pictures and artwork, everyday objects, various subjects and sounds, and visuals such as the flame of a candle.

The final part of my unit involves the gathering together of each student's output. This includes their poetry journal, which they have been keeping throughout the unit, as well as a poetry booklet they write and put together. All three stages blend together as the student progresses from one section of the unit to the next. The information and ideas of each section work together, so I do not talk about the three sections to the students. For them, I see each section as a natural progression. I have the unit in three parts for my own information as well as accountability. Keeping the three stages in mind makes it easier to check that I am covering all the information I want to cover for my poetry unit.

There is one teaching strategy that I use throughout all three sections of my unit, namely the use of question stems. Question stems are questions with blanks in them. Based on the poem or other subject matter, the teacher fills in the remainder of the question, tailoring it to the selection being read. I use question stems during the warm-ups of my poetry unit as well as when we are reading and studying individual poems. The same question stems can be used for different selections. The question stems I use in this unit are specific to poetry and figurative language but not to one particular poem. For instance, I ask what the word ____ in line#____ means or what does ____ symbolize?

I use question stems because the questioning forces the students to think. At the start of the unit I fill in the stem but toward the end of the unit the students are familiar enough with stems that they can fill in the stem specific to the poem. For example, in "Oranges" Soto uses the word "hissing." Using one of the question stems, you as the teacher could ask how the use of hyperbole contributes to the poem. You could also ask students to give an example of figurative language used by Soto, or: "line # contains what type of figurative language?" Actually, I use question stems throughout the year and have varying stems according to what genre or literary device we are studying. The list included in this unit is an ongoing list. I make changes as I see fit and create new stems as needed also. The concept of question stems is based on Bloom's Taxonomy. The questions and the wording of the questions develop critical thinking by having the student pay attention to detail, thus increasing comprehension.

When students are proficient at using question stems, I use the stems as an instructional tool for test taking strategies. By using the stems, the students become the "test makers," completing the stems and giving four answers as choices. They are writing their own test. We start out working in pairs and they only work on one question. As the students are working, I am circulating, checking their work for validity in the question stem completion and the answer choices. When all of the pairs are finished writing their question and answer choices, questions are traded and the "test makers" now become "test takers". The students do enjoy this because they only have to work on one question. They are especially satisfied when they have completed a question stem and written answer choices that stump one of their classmates! Now why would that be?

Question Stems for Poetry/ Figurative Language

I use these stems throughout the unit, even when the students are writing. Students focus on only one question stem at a time. Questioning them as they write gets them to really think about what they are writing. Please refer to this section when I specify question stems in the lesson plans.

The warm-up phase of my unit changes for each one of the three sections of the unit. The first part of the unit uses quotations and excerpts of poems in the warm-ups. Quotations can be chosen by the teacher based on ones the teacher likes or knows. I like to use quotations that are about education or becoming the best person you can become. Excerpts from poems that you use as warm-up can come from the poems the students added to the poem center of your classroom. Students are asked two or three questions about the quotation or poem excerpt that is on the overhead. In section two of the unit we still do some quotation analyzing but I also have the students begin compiling lists such as colors, smells, sounds and tastes. I will also put a "plain" word on the board and ask them to write down five antonyms and synonyms of the word. This activity moves them away from their comfortable words and helps them expand their vocabulary. The analyzing of the quotations and poem excerpts and the creation of the lists all add to the idea bank they can pull from when they write their own poetry. When they begin writing their own poetry in the third section, we still use the warm-up activities from section one and two, but the warm-ups used in the third section are more personal writing. The subject of this personal writing is their thoughts about what they are writing: the progress they are making and the revisions they are making on their poems. Each class, depending on the subjects written upon and the progress of their writing, will determine the nature of this personal writing. All of their warm-ups are put in the warm-up section of their journal and should be in the warm-up section of their journal.

When using quotations or excerpts from poems as your warm-up, there are several language arts devices that the student can be asked to identify as they read the quotation or excerpt. Students can be asked to determine the author's purpose, explaining what the author wants the reader to learn from the quotation or the poem. Students can determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Tone and mood can also be determined. All of this is completed in a short amount of time (five to seven minutes). Students analyze and evaluate in order to develop critical thinking skills. Students may also write their opinion of the quotation or poem and be expected to explain how or why they came to their opinion. This method of warm-up has the student thinking, writing and then discussing. The usual response to the warm-up is only two or three sentences. Keep in mind that question stems can also be used as an assessment tool during the warm-up portion of your lesson.

Section One

The first section of my unit introduces or reintroduces the mechanics of poetry. I look at all of my students as a clean slate when we begin this unit even though they have all had some poetry before they came into my room. The level of the student will determine how long you spend on the first section. I cover the following mechanics in part one. These poetic devices will be introduced to the student in the teacher input part of the lesson and reinforced in the guided and independent practice part of the classroom lesson.

1. Defining poetry:

• a. Define the word "poem"
• b. Define the word "poetry"
• c. Types of poetry
• Traditional: in stanza or groups of lines, with meter and often with rhyme
• Free Verse: no rhyme or meter, just strings of thoughts
• American Haiku: 3 line poem: lines 1 and 3 have 5 syllables,
• line 2 has 7 syllables
• Concrete or Emblem: takes the shape of the poem: an example would
• be a poem written about an apple takes the shape of an apple
• Limerick: 5 line poem: lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme,
• lines 3 and 4 rhyme

2. How to read poetry: Some suggestions: Have the students look at the title of the poem and try to decide what the poem is about based on the title. Read the poem aloud more than once. Listen carefully to the sounds of the words. Think about how the words and the sounds work together. Try to form a picture in your mind of the objects, landscapes or actions the poet is describing. Look at the form of the poem to see if this adds to the meaning of the poem. Check the author's use of capitalization, punctuation and spelling to see if this adds more meaning to the poem. Most importantly, read the poem according to punctuation. The poet places punctuation very specifically to aid the reader in the reading of the poem as well as the understanding of the poem. The end of a line doesn't always mean stop. If there is no punctuation at the end of a line, keep reading. Pause at all punctuation marks. But as we all know, at least a slight pause is needed at the end of every line, too, especially in free verse.

3. Understanding the poetry: you might try these ideas to help students understand what the poet is saying. Look at all the details of the poem. The details reside in words, phrases, sounds, images, places, objects, and figurative language and have to do with whether the poem has rhyme or is free verse. How the author uses the details will help understand the poem. You can have your students look at parts of the poem and then the whole poem to determine meaning. We always read the poem at least three times to help comprehension. Use of question stems will also help in comprehension. When the students and I begin to understand the poem, we start out at a very general level and then move to the more specific level. We look at theme, which is the general meaning of the poem, and move to the poet's use of language and/ or imagery, which is more specific. Your students' comprehension level will determine how specific you will want to be in interpreting a poem. Often, students will be more and more interested in discussing a poem the more they understand it.

I use the following poems when I begin teaching about understanding the meaning of poetry. These poems are all middle school student friendly and easy for them to understand. Ease of understanding gives students the confidence they need to move onto more difficult poems as we progress in our unit. As we all know, success breeds success!

"Oranges" by Gary Soto

"Not in Vain" by Emily Dickinson

"Scaffolding" by Seamus Heaney

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

"To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

Each of these poems is very easy for the middle school student to comprehend. They are by no means the only poems to use at the start of the poetry unit, but I will say that I have used them in the past, they seem to work, and, most importantly, the students like them. I like to think of these as hook poems. They deal with personal choice, relationships and emotions. Each of these elements is very important to the middle school student.

4. Figurative Language: I review all of the following terms and give examples of each. All of the figurative language terms are written in the student's journal. "Figurative language" refers to the words and phrases poets and authors use to stir the imagination and create pictures that will appeal to the senses. By using figurative language, the poet draws the reader into the poem, wanting the reader to become a part of the poem and the poem experience.

• Alliteration: repeating the same sound or letter at the beginning of words.
• Sally skipped stones by the sea side.
• Onomatopoeia: using words to recreate sounds, the words can be real or made up.
• Crash, boom, bam, buzz, vroom
• Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration.
• I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
• Simile: comparing two things using the words like or as.
• She smiled as brightly as the sun.
• Metaphor: comparing two things without using the words like or as.
• The bowl of spaghetti was a mountain of steam.
• Personification: gives an animal or object a personality looking or acting like a
• real person
• The flames of the fire were dancing.
• Idiom: commonly used expression that has an implied meaning, but doesn't really
• mean what is said.
• It's raining cats and dogs.
• Imagery: uses words or phrases that appeal to the senses.
• The flashy yellow car raced like a speeding bullet.

I put these definitions and examples on the overhead and allow the students to copy them in their notebook. They bring in examples as homework assignments and go on figurative language scavenger hunts in the classroom. You could have a figurative language center in your classroom if you have enough room, or your students could just add their figurative language examples to the word wall.

Section Two

The second section of my unit is when the students begin their writing of poetry. Usually, several have written poetry prior to my class, which helps at this point. I sometimes have them share some of their poems as we begin this section. I have several activities that give the students ideas for poems.

Warm-ups in part two can continue to be analyzing quotations or excerpts from poems. One new addition here would be idioms. Since they have studied this figurative language device, now may be a time to have them try to figure out the intended meaning of an idiom. Warm-ups in this section also include developing lists of ideas for poems. The lists can be made individually or with a partner. Because this is a warm-up, I try to have them do the activity alone, but sometimes working with a partner gives them more ideas. The list can be made up of synonyms and antonyms for any word off the word wall. You can have them list objects in the room or around the school. Writing about other classes always gets a good response, and the students also enjoy writing about the cafeteria. You can have them make a list of emotions, colors, noises, things they like, things they don't like, words to describe them, a poem of questions, about sports, shoes, hats, food or anything else that they would like to make a list of. You could even have them make a list of lists!!!

One object that I like to use in my classroom is a candle. The students really enjoy this because we turn out the lights and the teacher has matches! Just let the principal know what you are doing in the room. I turn out the lights and light the candle. Just have the students look at the candle for one or two minutes. Then ask them to write down words, just words for now, that describe the candle, the flame, the sounds and what the candle does for the atmosphere of the room. Let the students share their responses. From this, the students can begin putting their words about the candle in poem form. The time on this will vary but after several minutes the students could begin to share their works in progress. All of this is being written in their poetry journal.

I use the same concept when I let the students listen to a musical selection. The musical selection must be instrumental. Again, they write words to describe the music and how they feel listening to the music. I use varieties of music from classical to jazz to rock for them to write their music poetry. From the words they develop phrases and the phrases become their poetry. This is also written in their poetry journal.

Another activity in this section of my unit is having the students write their own poetry modeling a given poem. Kenneth Koch used this writing technique in his classroom. He would suggest that the students use the same theme, form or language that the poem's author used in order to develop their own poems. I have used this technique in my room, and the student writing is very successful. I use the poems listed below when I have the students model their writing. All of these poems speak to the middle school student on a very personal, emotional level. I read the poem and ask the student to write down what the poem means to them. After discussing their thoughts, we talk about the form of the poem and the author's use of language. Students start developing their own vocabulary in line with the theme and form of the model poem, and then begin their writing. They especially enjoy William Carlos Williams's "This is Just to Say." This poem is a "kind of" apology. The writer is somewhat sorry for what he did but at the same time glad he did what he did. It's also a "kind of " love poem, or celebration of domestic life. The middle school student jumps on this theme because they can relate it to personal experience.

Suggested Model Poems:

"Journey," Nikki Giovanni

"Song of Myself," Walt Whitman (section I)

"Dreams," Langston Hughes

"Harlem (Dreams Deferred)," Langston Hughes

"Alone," Maya Angelou

"If I Were In Charge of the World," Judith Viorst

""The Aliens Have Landed," Ken Nesbitt

"Be Glad Your Nose Is On Your Face," Jack Prelutsky

"This Is Just To Say," William Carlos Williams

As the students write, they can share their work and also share any poems they would like to use as a model for their writing. Because of the personal nature of what they write, I do not require students to read their poems aloud. I read them as I check their journals and make any comments privately. When your class is at this part of the unit, it may be a good time to have them thinking about the poetry booklet that will be coming due. They will need to include original works, and they may want to begin deciding which poems to keep.

I do not limit my poetry unit to the poems I have listed in this section or the previous section of my unit. The students and I are adding to our poem center in the room and very often when they are finished with their warm-up I will read one of my "favorites" and ask if they have any of their "favorites" to share before we begin the instructional part of our class. Some of my favorites are "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet, "Sad Underwear" by Judith Viorst, "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe and "Jimmy Jet and His T.V. Set" by Shel Silverstein. Actually I read many more! The list is far too extensive to give here. As you go through this unit, begin to create your own "favorite" list. The reading and sharing of poems in this manner continues the warm, inviting atmosphere of the class that we began to create at the start of this unit.