Poetry Fridays
Understanding Poems (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 1: Beginning LiteracyStage 2: Consolidation / Fluency
Stage 3: Literacy for Growth
Ages:
5-9
Grade Range:
1st 2nd 3rdFood Groups:
Primary: Text Structures & Genres
Transcript
Students are expected to be exposed to and understand a variety of different genre of text, and one of those is poetry. In our classroom, we expose the children to poetry every Friday, and it's something they actually look forward to. We have specific activities connected to the poetry every Friday, and these activities change as the term progresses. So we will give the students their poem and we might perhaps give them a highlighter. The activity at the carpet with their clipboard and their highlighter might be to highlight the words that rhyme; we might be working on that particular word family at the time. As the term progressed, I might ask them to highlight verbs in the poem, and as our sense of community develops in the classroom and we're able to work together in cooperative learning situations I might ask them to highlight an entire stanza and perform that stanza in a group, which helps them see and comprehend the poem by seeing it actually happen. After they've had a whole group opportunity with poetry, it's important that they have independent practice as well so that the teacher can see exactly what they're understanding and what they're next steps need to be in terms of understanding the genre and the particular poem that you're talking about. This is a great way to incorporate those instructional terms that you've taught your students. So, for example, if you want them to justify their opinion about why the author may have said something in a particular stanza, not only are you checking their comprehension of the poem, but you're also slipping those words in on a more consistent basis, so that when there comes an assessment time they're familiar with the words, they know what's expected of them, because they've had that consistent practice with their poetry every Friday.
Related References
Poetryteachers.com: http://www.poetryteachers.com/poetclass/poetclass.html Poetry: http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/index.htm Poetry Club: http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/poetry/what.html
Activity Objective
The goal of Poetry Fridays: Understanding Poems (Virtual Tour) is to encourage students to think about the purpose of their writing and explicitly teach the features and structures of different types of poetry on a regular basis.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- Change the poetry activities throughout the term by incorporating seasonal topics, events and celebrations.
- Incorporate cooperative learning activities as well as independent practice into your poetry Fridays.
- Read, study, and write a variety of poetry structures including acrostic, rhyme, cinquain, free verse, narrative and Haiku.
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