Teaching the Language Arts: Week 8

Week 8: Teaching Poetry

Over the last few weeks, I have immersed myself into the reading of poetry.  This has been a huge challenge for me.  Like many adults, I grew up with a hatred for poetry; Georgia Heard is spot on in her book Awakening the Heart (1999), when she mentions that many people dislike poetry because they grow up dissecting poems, which she compares to how pointless it felt when she dissected a frog in a high school science class.  This week we have talked about reading and writing poetry more freely.  In the reading of Heard’s book (1999), I gained more knowledge on how to teach the writing of poetry, but also more about how to help students appreciate poems.  In discussing writing poems based on a picture, Heard says, “Poetry is about recognizing and paying attention to our inner lives—our memories, hopes, doubts, questions, fears, joys—and the image is the hook we find to hang the poem on.”   The idea of being able to write about my inner feelings and emotions about the world around me, rather than dissecting every word and hiding meaning in my poems, is so freeing.  In the coming weeks I will begin to write poetry again for the first time in years.  While I am nervous about letting go of my perfectionism and learning to love the words that I put together, I am excited to try writing in a new way.

As I mentioned before, most of our reading for the last week has been not just reading about poetry, but actually reading poems!  I want to leave you with a few of my favorites.

Somewhere

Today my world

feels sad to me

but I can close

my eyes and see

a rainbow

somewhere

on this earth

somewhere

a shooting star

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Three Things To Remember

As long as you’re dancing, you can

break the rules.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just

extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules.

Mary Oliver

Why Cats Are Better Than My Older Sister

They never tell you what to do.

They never ever yell at you.

They don’t think that they’re always right.

They’re prettier to look at, too.

They do not mind a messy room.

They aren’t stinky with perfume.

And when they fight, they friendly fight-

More like a pat than a kaboom.

They don’t act like a year round Grinch.

They don’t, when no ones looking, pinch,

Or chase you from your bed at night,

Or say you haven’t grown an inch.

They do not always think they’re queen.

They wont be, one purpose, mean,

Or want you out-out!- of their sight.

And though they’re clean, they are not too clean.

I’d never want to tell them “scat!”

I’ve got a secret wish.  It’s that

Someday, someway, somehow I might

Exchange my sister for a cat.

Judith Viorst

Sources:

Heard, G. (1999). Awakening the heart: Exploring poetry in elementary and middle school. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Oliver, Mary. (2012).  A Thousand Mornings. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Viorst, J. (2016). What are you Glad about? What are you Mad about?.  New York, NY: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books.