Poetry - The Writing Equilizer

At the end of last year I was scheduled to teach poetry. I was excited to see what my students would do because we had been doing some interpretative dance videos, and they did much better than I had ever expected.

Here's what I remember doing (it was two long months ago that I did this)

• I started out by reading some poetry to them.
• I then put up a keyword to brainstorm around; plants.
• I then had them brainstorm words associated with that term.
• I then went through a standard quatrain style, and told them to use it as a framework for their poem.

There was a boy in my class last year who I know has the ability to perform better than he has, but for the past few years has not. When I passed by his desk to see how he was doing, I was not expecting much.

When I saw his poem however, I was shocked. It was an awesome poem. When I read it, I could hear a song coming out of it and it had great emotion to it. It was really cool.

For that kid, poetry was where he was equal to his peers.

Then I started thinking that maybe instead of writing stories or journal entries, this kid's knack was writing poetry or shorter verse stuff. I am going into new territory this year by switching grades, but I have to remember to incorporate many types of writing in the class to try to not only hit on the students' strengths, but also give them new challenges and creative outlets.

Here is the first draft of his poem.