Candidate demonstrates a variety of ways to teach students composing processes that result in their creating various forms of oral, visual, and written literacy.
Found Poetry: I was introduced to this lesson by Mrs. Tollafield, my Multi-Modal professor at Kent State. In this lesson students will first take some time (a few days at least) to study and read different types of poetry. I'd create a poetry "flood" in my classroom. Students should have access to many, MANY different types of poems. This would be a great opportunity to also add a multicultural element to my classroom by introducing poems written by poets from around the world. I would bring in song lyrics and other "different" forms of poetry as well to show that poems are more than rows of lines that end with rhyming words. Obviously, there will also be the classic poets like Dickinson, Poe, Wordsworth, etc available for students to view.
As they read through the poems, students should write their favorite lines on note cards along with proper citations (one note card per line). Throughout this process, I will be teaching the students about poetry composition. We'll look at transitions, form, and everything else that goes into the creation of a poem. Students ultimately will create their own poem using the lines of other poets. This will be a great introduction to poetry writing. A lot of people (myself included) struggle with the creation of poetry because they can't find the right words. In this situation, students will have all of the right words; they just need to organize them into a poem that's meaningful to them. With time, this scaffold can be removed and students can create poetry using their own words.
After creating their poems, students will then represent their written words using images and color schemes through PowerPoint. Each line will have its own slide. Each slide must visually represent the tone/mood/meaning of the words. This will move the students' creations from written language to visual language. To take it one step further-- from visual to oral-- students should present their PowerPoints to the class. Instead of just reading the words of their poems, though, students will need to explain why each slide looks the way it does. Why did they choose the color scheme that they did to represent that particular line?
Click on the following document to see the rubric used for Found Poetry:
I taught an Honors class also while student teaching. To differentiate for their class during the poetry unit, I decided to teach them all about Spoken Word Poetry. I was introduced to Spoken Word one day while looking for videos on YouTube. I found Sarah Kay, a well-known Spoken Word poet, and instantly was hooked on her way with words and performance. I used many of her videos to teach students about Spoken Word (most hadn't heard of it). They were hooked too. There was so much buzz in class (and outside of class) with students talking about her poetry. The project was a huge success! I had multiple students tell me after the project that writing Spoken Word has transformed their original viewpoint on poetry.
Watch the following video to see an example of Sarah Kay's Spoken Word:
Click on the following document to see the rubric used for Spoken Word:
Candidate demonstrates a variety of ways to teach students composing processes that result in their creating various forms of oral, visual, and written literacy.
Found Poetry: I was introduced to this lesson by Mrs. Tollafield, my Multi-Modal professor at Kent State. In this lesson students will first take some time (a few days at least) to study and read different types of poetry. I'd create a poetry "flood" in my classroom. Students should have access to many, MANY different types of poems. This would be a great opportunity to also add a multicultural element to my classroom by introducing poems written by poets from around the world. I would bring in song lyrics and other "different" forms of poetry as well to show that poems are more than rows of lines that end with rhyming words. Obviously, there will also be the classic poets like Dickinson, Poe, Wordsworth, etc available for students to view.
As they read through the poems, students should write their favorite lines on note cards along with proper citations (one note card per line). Throughout this process, I will be teaching the students about poetry composition. We'll look at transitions, form, and everything else that goes into the creation of a poem. Students ultimately will create their own poem using the lines of other poets. This will be a great introduction to poetry writing. A lot of people (myself included) struggle with the creation of poetry because they can't find the right words. In this situation, students will have all of the right words; they just need to organize them into a poem that's meaningful to them. With time, this scaffold can be removed and students can create poetry using their own words.
After creating their poems, students will then represent their written words using images and color schemes through PowerPoint. Each line will have its own slide. Each slide must visually represent the tone/mood/meaning of the words. This will move the students' creations from written language to visual language. To take it one step further-- from visual to oral-- students should present their PowerPoints to the class. Instead of just reading the words of their poems, though, students will need to explain why each slide looks the way it does. Why did they choose the color scheme that they did to represent that particular line?
Click on the following document to see the rubric used for Found Poetry:
I taught an Honors class also while student teaching. To differentiate for their class during the poetry unit, I decided to teach them all about Spoken Word Poetry. I was introduced to Spoken Word one day while looking for videos on YouTube. I found Sarah Kay, a well-known Spoken Word poet, and instantly was hooked on her way with words and performance. I used many of her videos to teach students about Spoken Word (most hadn't heard of it). They were hooked too. There was so much buzz in class (and outside of class) with students talking about her poetry. The project was a huge success! I had multiple students tell me after the project that writing Spoken Word has transformed their original viewpoint on poetry.
Watch the following video to see an example of Sarah Kay's Spoken Word:
Click on the following document to see the rubric used for Spoken Word: