For the past week, two of my peers and I have been teaching a poetry unit in two fourth grade classrooms here on the mountain. It has been so much fun to get back into the classroom, even if only for the mornings, and explore everything that I have learned about teaching poetry this semester.
The poetry unit that we taught focused on free verse poetry. On day one, we introduced poetry through performance. Students had the opportunity to perform poems individually, with partners, or with a small group. On day two, we addressed ordinary versus poetic language, as well as emphasized the comparison techniques of simile and metaphor. Students participated in a hands on investigation of “cuties” in order to practice word choice. On day three, we discussed the musical toolbox, specifically alliteration, repetition, and rhyme. Students explored elements of the musical toolbox within song lyrics. On day four, we introduced object poetry. Students read and wrote poems about objects from the given object’s point of view. On day five, we focused on revision strategies. Students utilized skills learned in previous lessons to revise their own object poems. Students then had the opportunity to share their individual work with one another during a poetry gallery walk.
Click here to view the planning sequence for this week's lessons!
Click here to view the in-depth daily lesson plans!
A Reflection of Day Five's Lesson:
Today was so much fun! We started the day by revising our poems to prepare for our poetry gallery walk today. We specifically address ways that we could revise specific words or lines in our poems to make our overall piece more effective. Students were eager make sure their poems represented their object well without giving its identity away. It was so much fun to watch them try to continue working secretively. The best part of the day though was the poetry gallery walk at the end of the lesson. Students walked around the room, pausing thoughtfully in front of their peers’ poems to read and record guesses. They kept giggling and gasping as they discovered new ideas to slide into their friends’ envelopes. And then, it was finally time. My fourth graders raced back to their poems to read the guesses that had been left for them. It was such a joy, and honestly, it made every bit of this week well worth it.
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