Poetry

The Milner and Milner readings really helped me out this week. I am teaching poetry for the first time this week. I was kind-of nervous about it, because I feel like responses to poetry are very personal, so besides the technical terms, I wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. It really bothered me in school, when a teacher would say that my interpretation to a poem was wrong. I really feel that poetry is one of those things that needs to be personal, so our responses to it shouldn’t be wrong, because each of our personal experiences, will shape how we interpret the poet’s meaning. I found some strategies in M & M that made me feel a lot more comfortable about the lesson.

Poetry, as these articles show is something that is so important to the English classroom. I feel that students either love it or hate it. However, with some of these techniques, I think it can become something that more students love, and really walk away with a lot from. It is one of the few times in the classroom where most rules go out the window, and students can just worry about connecting with a piece of writing. They don’t really have to have correct grammar, and they can express themselves. I really like in the wordplay article how they show it can help your bilingual students feel more comfortable in the classroom, because they can combine all of their strengths in poetry. I agree with this, but I had never thought about it before. I also think its cool how the article shows that students can make up words. Sometimes, I feel that students get frustrated, because they can’t find the perfect word. The ability to make up a word would really show some deeper thinking, as I would have them explain how they came to that word.
The Exphrasis poetry can be really helpful as well. I’m doing something similar with this in the poetry lesson I’m teaching this week. Some poems seem so random, and out there, but seeing the inspiration helps students to feel more comfortable in unlocking the poem. I feel that activities like this really do make students more confident in their poetry reading skills. I like activities like this, because it shows students that they can understand things like this, and they are capable.



Switching gears a little bit, I just have a few comments about the ipod article. I love this idea in the schools. I feel that if the school provides the ipods, and they stay in the schools, you can assure that the material on them is appropriate, and educational. I think that this is a trend that will spread to all schools that can afford them, and they really can be a great resource. In the school system I want to teach in, they have laptops that teachers can sign out, so the students can do work in the classroom. For example, in science they can have the computers as a supplement to the activity. Ipods will probably be quite similar. They really help students get more excited about learning. I think that it’s a great way to bridge the gap between school and their personal lives, so students are more eager and interested to learn.