Why Poetry?
Poetry is a beautiful form of literature that can bring students together to discuss important ideas/themes while ultimately providing them with a strong literacy foundation. In addition, teaching students how to read and appreciate poetry sets them up well as literate individuals who understand the beauty and meaning of written language. Moreover, I find that the art of poetry is an effective and under-utilized tool for developing competent literacy, including reading comprehension skills for all levels. Therefore, this unit can be modified to be utilized at any grade level. In fact, if introduced to students in earlier stages such as Kindergarten, it would strengthen their literacy skills much more in the long term. Studies have shown that the concepts embedded in poetry, like rhyme, alliteration, personification, and imagery, are foundational to decoding, comprehension, and fluency- the backbones of good reading comprehension and visual literacy.
The process of reading poems, like coming to understand works of art, exercises the mind when they are read thoughtfully and multiple times. A poem is meant to be read more than once so that its audience can begin to uncover its deliberate word choices and its structure. I think poetry will help students appreciate complex meaning by needing to slow down in order to consider word choices. Moreover, poetry has elements in it that transcend times and culture. It can transport students to a distant geographic location or historic era, or to a specific emotion. Ideally, I would like students to understand that a poem is a bridge between humans because their minds as well as hearts can connect in ways that can strengthen both the writer and audience. Once students find that connection and feel comfortable with the concept of poetry as another form of art, they can move forward and explore poems about artwork as well as create their own poems and communal art piece- the mural.
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