April was NationalPoetry Month! We celebrated by setting up creative book displays, providing curriculum resources for teachers for use in their classrooms, and by hosting student poetry readings in the library.
Ms. Dowcett, one of our 7th-grade reading teachers, truly brought this unit to life! I asked her to share her poetry unit with our Library Blog and this is what she said:
"When I introduced our poetry unit by asking students to write Haikus about their feelings on poetry, I was not surprised to find that a number of students began their poems with the cinco-syllabic (though not so poetic) line “I hate poetry”. Students moaned and groaned and I vowed to do my best to make poetry exciting and accessible.
We read a few rather traditional poems about nature that the students deemed corny, and then we launched into the book Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes. While reading Bronx, our students discovered how personal poetry could be, and they connected to its potential for creative self-expression.
Throughout the book we would stop from time to time to hear recordings of real teens performing their own spoken-word pieces or competing in poetry slams. When I gave our students the chance to compete in their own in-class slams, I was pleasantly surprised by how many people signed up and I was blown away by the talent and personal insights they revealed in sharing their poems.
Check out these videos of Student Poetry Readings done in the Library in preparation for our first poetry slam...
The poetry slam we’re holding in the auditorium on May 22nd is the culmination of all of this. Our slam will be hosted by a local award-winning slam poet from Brandeis University, and our students will have an opportunity to share their poems with a wider audience. The theme of the poems is self-identity, and my hope is that contestants and audience members alike will be moved by poetry’s ability to inspire compassion and reveal the deep connections we all have to each other. And if that ambitious goal is not met, I’ll settle for just a couple of hours of poetic fun!
How do you celebrate National Poetry Month with your students?
Have fun at the poetry slam!
ReplyDeleteMrs. May