Exploratorium 2012: Frank, Ellen
Express Yourself Through Poetry
Table #11 Express Yourself Through Poetry
Audience: All
Presenter: Ellen Frank
Jamaica Campus Library
167-01 Gothic Drive
Jamaica, New York 11432
Library Web site: www.jamaicahighschool.org/library
E-mail: efrank2@schools.nyc.gov
Description, Goals, Intended Outcomes:
Description: Through poetry, students will be inspired to become better writers and develop a lifelong love of reading and writing poetry. Poetry today is a very popular form of verse, as evidenced by the popularity of Ellen Hopkin’s books, Crash, Burned, etc., rap style music and poetry, and from an even earlier age, Dr. Seuss. To capture this love of poetry, I encourage students to express themselves through their own poetry as well as finding poems they love and sharing them orally with their classmates.
Goals: To increase the reading of poetry, to have students write their own poetry and to improve their oral presentation skills.
Intended Outcomes: Increase the circulation of poetry books, increase the creative writing of poetry, increase oral presentation skills of the readers and the listening skills of the audience.
Process to Develop and Implement this Project:
I invited teachers to participate in the poetry slam through emails and personal invitations. I encouraged student participation by encouraging students to ask their English teachers to participate. I hung up signs around the school advertising the poetry slam and used photographs of prior read alouds to encourage students to join this year’s poetry slam. Each poetry slam had a different theme. In October, it was a “spooky read aloud.” In April of this year, the theme was “emotion.” In past years, I used the theme “America” to coincide with the Picturing America books we received from a grant. One year the theme was Shakespeare, because Shakespeare’s birthday is in April. Another year we used the theme “love.” I taught several classes prior to the event where I booktalked poetry books we have in our library, including the popular Ellen Hopkins series and popular new picture books for older readers.
We also held a “sensory poetry” workshop where students created poetry with “found objects” which I supplied. Some of the objects given to students to examine were a broken eggshell, a seashell, a feather, a pinecone, a dried flower. Students created poetry using the form, “It looks like…, it smells like…”, etc. The form was taken from the readwritethink.org website.
The day of the event I handed out five envelopes, one for each emotion. On each envelope I wrote one sentence for an emotion that the students were to write about. Example: “Anger feels like a ball smashing through a window.” Love feels like a soft kitten purring softly on a lap. Happiness feels like a red balloon floating in the sky. Students had to write one sentence about each emotion on a slip of paper. Each paper was placed in the envelope for the appropriate emotion. The poetry reading was held after this introductory activity. The last five minutes of the event we read the collaborative poems created by the audience. It was a fun culminating activity and demonstrated how students were able to increase their poetic writing.
Budget: Minimal book purchases from the NYSTL library budget. Books donated through the Picturing America Bookshelf grant. Minimal costs for printing programs, paper and ink for printing.
Timeline: Project began in late September for presentation in October. For April poetry slam planning began in March. Total time: three weeks.
Evidence of Outcomes, Possible Adaptations, Lessons Learned:
Evidence of Outcomes:
Improved basic writing skills and awareness of descriptive writing
Improved ability to recognize literary techniques such as imagery, similies, metaphors
Higher motivation and interest in reading poetry and creating poetry
Increased sharing and collaboration in writing and reading
Improved articulation in dramatic reading of poetry
Enhanced collaborative behavior
Possible Adaptations:
Emphasize different literary techniques
Model different types of poetry such as haiku, sonnet, rhyming poetry, diamante poems.
Have students create different types of poetry.
Use different themes for poetry slams.
Lessons Learned:
I learned that students love to share their poetry with others and are proud to see their work published and displayed around the school. They are eager to write and feel encouraged when they are praised for their work. Students enjoy reading books that are written in poetic forms and will seek out books which they can relate to, whether written in poetry or prose. Once they get into the reading habit, they will begin to explore many different genres.
Common Core State Standard(s) addressed:
- RL.8.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
- RL.9-10.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
- RL.9-10.10. By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
- SL.8.4. Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a focused, coherent manner with relevant evidence, sound valid reasoning, and well-chosen details; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.
- SL.8.5. Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.
- SL.8.6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
- SL.9-10.6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.
- WHST.6-8.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- WHST.6-8.5. With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.
- WHST.6-8.6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas clearly and efficiently.
Information Fluency Continuum (
Writing poetry with descriptive words, reading for interpretation and drama. Exploring themes in works read and using background knowledge to generate new ideas. Presenting knowledge in new forms. Working cooperatively in groups, writing to persuade.
Assessments:
Reflective writing, oral language fluency, observations in the library and classroom will also be discussed. Formal assessments of comprehension of poetry read. Student work samples will be shared.
Resources Used:
Readwritethink.org has a number of lesson plans relating to poetry.
One of the lessons I used for the sensory poems was: Wood, Jaime: “Color of Silence: Sensory Imagery in Pat Mora’s Poem: Echoes.” http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/color-silence-sensory-imagery-1104.html
An excellent book referenced in the website is: Living Voices by Jaime Wood.
Wood, Jaime R. 2006. Living Voices: Multicultural Poetry in the Middle School Classroom. Urbana, IL: NCTE.
The envelope poetry idea comes from “The Envelope Project”, an idea written up on the Poetry Society blog.
http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/piyp/the_envelope_project/
In the past, I also had students create “found poems” using the book the students were studying at the moment. The idea for this came from the New York Times learning blog by Katherine Schulten:
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/student-challenge-new-york-times-found-poem/