Day One 6th Grade Poetry

      We started our poetry unit today. As you can imagine, this was not joyous news for all. I could tell as they began their warm-up that the battle was beginning. How will I help them find that poetry is not all Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost and that I just might have a few poems they won't detest hidden up my sleeve? Don't get me wrong, I love those poets but not all kids do. So to start us off, I asked them to write in their journals any and all feelings they have about poetry. I gave them a few leading questions to consider. What do you like about the poetry you have studied other years in school? What didn't you like? Were there poems you loved? Were there poets you recalled enjoying. After writing for about 10 minutes we shared some responses. But before I asked the students to share, I shared what I had written at the same time they wrote. I have 5 sections so I wrote 4 times today. I'd like to share my thoughts first on poetry.

#1. I always dreaded poetry. I took a creative writing class one time in college and when we had to write poems I was terrified. The poems I wrote were TERRIBLE. Since becoming a teacher, I have found many poems that I love. I have met some poets too whom I respect immensely.
     A few summers ago I took a writing class over the summer called, Teachers Write. As a result of one of the writing prompts in that class, I actually wrote a poem I don't hate!
     Lesson to be learned from this? Keep trying! Keep Exploring! If you haven't found poems you like yet you haven't read enough! Let's do this together!

#2. I think it's interesting to see all the poetic devices poets use in their poems to make them come alive with imagery. Similes and metaphors, personification and alliteration, irony and symbolism to name a few. I think that poets may just be the most talented writers because they are able to convey so much meaning in so few words.
     The poem I wrote when I took that summer class started out as an essay about what you could see in your back yard after taking 100 steps.

By the time I was done with that poem after hundreds of changes, it turned out to be a poem about missing my parents and lost opportunities to spend time with them. That was nothing like what I had started out to write. That poem took over and wrote itself in spite of my bumbling attempts.
     Lesson to be gained here? Trying something new or unfamiliar can result in something really great or surprising if you give it half a chance!

#3.  Of all the different genres in literature, poetry is seldom my first choice. It's not usually my second or my third. So I may be more like my poetry phobic students than different. However, I have begun to appreciate poetry and poets more and more over time.
     Someone who was surprisingly skillful at poetry was my dad.

George was a strong, cheerful, hard worker who grew up on a hundred acre farm with eleven siblings. He left school at 8th grade to work the farm and eventually left to fight in WWII. Not an academic sort but so very wise about all things, we often were treated to rhyming couplets that he would compose mostly on scraps of paper, opened envelopes, or on yellow legal pads. Those bits of writing usually were to inform family about where he was headed that day, errands he was running or just to tell my mom he would be back soon to see his beautiful gal.
      Many times I have tried to emulate my dad and his carefree rhyming notes. NOPE. Can't do it. Wish I had thought at some point to ask him how in the world he did it so easily.
     Lesson learned here? Anyone can be a poet and it could very well be someone you would least expect.

#4. At the Rochester Children's Book Festival over the years I have met several notable authors. A few are poets and I have begun purchasing their books to use in my classroom. Nikki Grimes

is a well known poet whom I have met several times as she is a regular at the event. I now have four of her books. The poem, "First Day," that we read at the beginning of the year is from her  book called, Words With Wings.
     When I chatted with her this year, she urged me to check out her newest  book, One Last Word,

because of the new poetic form she used to create it. When I looked confused at her explanation, she grabbed her book and pointed to one of the poems to show me what she meant. The form is called Golden Shovel. As she explained it I became so excited because I couldn't wait to try it and see if I could do it. I also couldn't wait to show it to my colleague, Andrea Page and my students.
     Lesson learned here? New ideas for writing pop up all of the time. Be ready to snatch that idea and run away with it.

Those were the examples I shared with my students. Many of them struggle with focusing in on the journal prompt. They need to see many, many models of how you can just begin to write and the page seems to fill itself. Many were willing to share bits and pieces of their own writing after I had shared some of mine. There was less sharing than we normally get but maybe that will pick up as we move through this unit. Poetry is a slippery mountain we climb together one step at a time. Day one-- done in the land of 6th grade poetry.