Playing with Poems: Rules, Tools, and Games

The Intersection of Identity, Poetry, and Instructional Practice

Because identity construction has a definitive and measurable academic and emotional impact on teens, teachers must consider effective methods and instructional moves that they can use to drive learning, taking into account how students view themselves and others. Maehr makes several suggestions about instructional moves that a teacher should make in order to help student's think about their identity and promote student engagement: Allow time and opportunity for peer interaction to occur, build an environment of acceptance and appreciation of all students, encourage programs that take advantage of students' backgrounds and experience, give optimal choice in instructional settings, and foster participation in co-curricular, and extra-curricular settings. ¹⁵

Teaching students about various frames/genres of poetry, students can use the forms that work best for them in order to produce work that authentically builds on student experiences and backgrounds. The numerous subgenres of poetry that are included in this unit are complex, rigorous texts that meet the Common Core State Standards. Shanahan and Shanahan note that most students need "explicit teaching of sophisticated genres, specialized language conventions, disciplinary norms of precision and accuracy, and higher-level interpretative processes [to be successful readers]." ¹⁶ By defining poetic terms and forms with students and talking about them as a group, students will develop the language that they need to be successful in rigorous academic reading. Going along with Shanahan and Shanahan's logic, this type of direct instruction goes along with the need for continued high-level literacy skills instruction as text complexity increases in middle school. ¹⁷ Reading poetry allows for students to be engaged in reading complex text in a manner that is not overwhelming given the brevity of most poems. If students are taught and modelled the language of discussing literature and poetry through classroom discussion and close reading, then they should grow more proficient at analyzing it independently when instructional scaffolds are removed.

For example, one of the frames that will be taught in the unit is rhyme. One of the poems that we will explore is "Incident" by Countee Cullen:

    Now I was eight and very small,
    And he was no whit bigger,
    And so I smiled, but he poked out
    His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'…
    Of all the things that happened there
    That's all that I remember. 18
  

The poem is short, but it is tightly woven together by the rhyme at the end of each line. This rhyme initially gives the poem a very sing-song type of rhyme. I would point this out after they read it independently and I read it to them expressively in order to highlight rhyme and diction. I would have students come together and perform a tableau activity with groups to capture the moment that the happy-go-lucky nature of the speaker changes by staging the climax of the poem. I would engage in some guided questioning to highlight how the rhyme acts as a form that provides a frame to narrate the speaker's experience. We would also have a safe discussion about the effects of racism on an individual. In the poem, it is evident the speaker is deeply impacted; the individual could not remember anything from Baltimore after spending half a year there besides being referred to by a racial slur. This builds off of Maehr's suggestions for successful literacy instruction. In the poem above, rhyme is a frame that students will learn about for communicating their own experiences through poetry; this poem that rhymes also addresses racism which issue of relevance for my students.

An additional consideration in studying poetry is thinking about what it allows us to do with students. Meaningful tasks promote student engagement and learning. ¹⁹ Frye and Fisher note that motivation reaches its lowest levels around the time that most students are in seventh grade. ²⁰ They advocate that it is important to counter this lack of motivation through group work, but it needs to be group work with a meaningful task. The article defined the framework for a meaningful task using the acronym TARGET (Task, Autonomy, Recognition, Resources, Grouping, Evaluation, and Time). ²¹ For example, music can be used to think about how repetition is effective as a way to bring cohesion to ideas. In one of the pieces that we'll explore in the unit, "Cat's in the Cradle," students will look at the lyrics of the song as a form of poetry and see how the repeated structure of narrative, dialogue, and refrain create a frame for a narrative to be told through the song:

    A child arrived just the other day
    He came to the world in the usual way
    But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
    He learned to walk while I was away
    And he was talking before I knew it and as he grew
    He said, "I'm gonna be like you, Dad
    You know I'm gonna be like you"
    And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
    Little boy blue and the man in the moon
    When you comin' home, Dad, I don't know when
    But we'll get together then
    You know we'll have a good time then
    My son turned ten just the other day
    He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
    Can you teach me to throw?" I said, "Not today
    I got a lot to do", he said, "That's okay"
    And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
    And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
    You know I'm going to be like him"
    And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
    Little boy blue and the man in the moon
    When you comin' home, Dad, I don't know when
    But we'll get together then
    You know we'll have a good time then… 22
  

This song, which I have used before to teach about repetition, dialogue, and narration, is a much more compelling way to address all of those elements of poetry and good writing than other more traditional means. Students understand the dialogue and the story that are part of this song because they have experienced or anticipate experiencing the same role reversal in the near future. In the song, the story that is being told is that the kid wants to spend time with his dad, but he is too busy with life. When the dad finally has the time, the kid becomes too busy to spend time. The dialogue makes this song personal; it is a conversation that many of us have had with our parents without thinking. The refrain sets up a subtle shift from the dad being too busy to the son finally being too busy as the song progresses through the refrain. The shift that occurs in the song is something that poets do all of the time; they create a form and intentionally break the form that has been created for effect. The richness of being able to communicate all of this through a song that is meaningful for students is important. The value of creating meaningful tasks cannot be underestimated when it comes to raising the level of motivation for students.

Frye and Fisher articulate what should be included in creating an effective task:

The collaborative task should require students to utilize previously learned concepts in a new way, the task should [not] be beyond their capabilities, but rather… structured in such a way that the outcome is not a given (in other words a certain level of ambiguity creates rigor and promotes learning), [the activities should have students] closely listening to each other and building an understanding of one another. ²³

In the Playing with Poems Seminar, the environment was essentially what research indicates is a best practice. No set outcome was clear before reading; the participants had to do the cognitive work in order to build collective knowledge through reading and talking out selections. Teachers listened to one another and built an understanding of what they read based on collaborative conversations. Through the course of the seminar, everyone spoke and contributed meaningfully to the group's growing awareness of poetic form and function. This scenario can be recreated in a middle school classroom setting through careful selection of task, text, and discussion protocol. It is important to note that rather than become tempted to make the assignment simpler, it is important to focus on creating meaningful tasks that engage all learners. ²⁴ By selecting a topic that is already something on the forefront of many students' minds (such as identity and life changes) and adhering closely to the standards by engaging in close reading of poetry and looking at form, students will not be put off by the cognitive demands that are placed on their minds while reading and producing poetry and sharing their written work.