Persona or “I” Poems February 25, 2009

Like Langer and Applebee (1987) I believe instructional scaffolding is important and vital in all areas of teaching.  I plan to use scaffolding through reading books to my first graders such as Atlantic, Rainbow Soup (Brian Cleary).  I want to compose these poems together as a class and then allow students to work cooperatively to compose their own.  Persona poems allow students to write through another person, object or animals perspective.  They force students to dig so deep into a character, animal, person in history or world that the character becomes a part of the student.  This is truly where learning takes place.  When students connect and relate to the character they are using higher order thinking skills taking information and creating something so out of the box. 

I am so excited about this unit and introducing it to my students.  I have so many ideas from black history month to living and non-living things.  I can’t wait to begin.

Found Poem February 20, 2009

Winter is…

Snow

Good food   Dry Skin.

Frozen

Hot Chocolate Mix

Frosty Living

January

Cabin Fever

1 Dish Dinners

Beating a Cold.

Button Up time

Reading a good book

Just what the world needs.

Senryu…for my class February 20, 2009

Dental Health

 

 

Floss in between teeth

consume desserts sparingly

Visit the dentist.

Haiku February 20, 2009

River

 

Free flowing ripples

Natural stream of water

No rules that define.

 

 

“I” Poems February 17, 2009

The article by Kucan quotes Dunning and Stafford (1992), “We imitate not so much be like someone else as to learn what she/he has already learned.  When we know enough about how a poem is made, we are free to put our own stamp on things.”  How true I found this to be for myself.  I write and journal often but cringe at the thought of poetry.  However while researching and “marinating” in poetry I found myself understanding and pulling others poems apart to compose my own.  Once I began I couldn’t stop! I paused after my first poem, an I poem and asked myself have I done this correctly? But then I realized it doesn’t matter…I am the author.  I want my children to take part in this endeavor as well.  I plan on first “trying” I poetry with several of my reading groups.  After reading a story I plan to ask my students to put their selves in a character’s shoes and compose an I poetry.  Of course I will introduce the concept first and we will compose one together and then ask them to compose one themselves.  Although I often ask my students questions such as, “How do you think ______ felt in this story? What makes you think that? What would you have done, etc writing “I” poetry allows students to look deeper at identifying with characters in stories or in history.

What is Poetry………. February 11, 2009

So Much Depends Upon… February 4, 2009

So much depends

upon

a brown chair

it’s soft warm cushions

sitting in my living room.

So Much Depends Upon…. February 4, 2009

So much depends

upon

a pair of glasses

brown frame luminious lenses

helping my eyes to behold

clearly what normally is a blur.