#2ndaryELA is a group of middle and high school English Language Arts teachers looking to share ideas and best practices. We chat every Tuesday night at 8 pm EST using #2ndaryELA. We'd love for you to join us!
Cheers! I'm Jennifer, and I teach at Iowa City High, the most beautiful school in Iowa according to Architectural Digest. My site is https://t.co/HvXEZwAoXR. #2ndaryela
A1. I want students to have the liberty to select their own poems. To get Ss to "come close to poetry," as Frost says, I have them read lots of poems until the find the poet or poems that resonate with them. #2ndaryela
A2: Content is most important for me when planning my poetry unit. I want to include poems from diverse authors that reflect the interests of my students. It's about them. I need to make the content fit. #2ndaryELA
A2. Both together. 9th focuses on how poets match structure & content. US Lit focuses on poets in conversation during a particular time period, & the structures best suited to that work. I don't like divorcing one from the other. #2ndaryELA
A2: I typically default to structure, but I’m consideringa revamp for next year to see if I can embed more poetry throughout the year so that I can shift to content #2ndaryELA
A3: When introducing literary elements, I first use direct instruction, then show examples, and we annotate as a class. The most important aspect is getting students to understand HOW and WHY the devices are effective. https://t.co/0QHLvOg74x#2ndaryELA
A3. I like having Ss notice and name. I can provide academic language as necessary. Sometimes I scaffold with categories: sounds, fig language, patterns. #2ndaryela
A3 I like to give students a poetry glossary that lists all the terms we might reference and use that as we go. I don't see a lot of use in just memorizing terms to be able to pick them out of a poem #2ndaryELA
A3 mine struggle with understanding more than surface meaning. We have to annotate and make connections. They just aren’t confident with poetry #2ndaryELA
A4. Definitely. Poetry is so auditory, and slam poets bring it to life in an accessible way. We often write our own afterwards when we have their words in our ears. #2ndaryela
A4: This year my school implemented the Summit Learning platform in 8th grade and one of our units was SLAM poetry. The kids were hesitant at first, but by the end of the unit they were excited to share their work. We even had a poet come in and do a 2 day workshop :)
#2ndaryELA
I introduce literary devices at the beginning of the unit. I never assume that they learned about literary devices in elementary school. I use engaging videos and songs to help Ss understand.#2ndaryELA
A5: I had student write poems TO someone to mimic "Mother to Son" and "To James". We also analyzed Tupacs "Dear Mama" (the clean parts) to get some buy in too. It helped connect poetry to the real world around them. Most meaninful poetry thus far. #2ndaryELA
A5: To me it is very important to teach kids to read with the intention of being changed- as mentioned by Beers and Probst. I also loved using songs like “Wing$” by Macklemore in my poetry unit because it has lots of poetic devices and an awesome meaning. #2ndaryELA
The best poetry unit I've ever done was what I called a "Self-Portrait" in poetry. Students had to read widely and then write responses to 10 poems they felt spoke to them in some way. #2ndaryELA
If you're joining us for tonight's #TeachWriting chat, you have like 7 min to grab a cup of tea (or something stronger if you have a cold day like me tomorrow) and get set up to talk with us! #EdChat#MakeWriting#TeachWrite#TCRWP#2ndaryELA
