Researcher: Your job is to find some background information related to an important idea in the reading. Search through available references such as library books, reference books such as the encyclopedia, magazines. You might even interview someone who knows about your topic. Find some websites on the Internet so that you can do your investigation online. Share an interesting tidbit related to your reading.
Please respond to one other Research entry.
8 comments:
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In the poem Squished Squirrel Poem, the poet mentions how his teacher said he could not write a poem about squished squirrels. He does not seem to excite his students about poetry. I decided to do a bit of research on how to teach students poetry.
An article written by Bruce Lansky, How to Get Kids Excited about Reading Poetry:
Make It Fun!, from the poetryteachers.com website, mentions a few things that teachers can do to help teach children how to write and enjoy poetry. He explains that it is important to read poems that kids enjoy and can relate to on a daily basis, encourage children to read poems out loud and from memory, and that children should have a chance to celebrate poetry.
These ideas about teaching poetry to children were also seen in the article, Books in the classroom: Poetry, by Anne Clark, found in Horn Book Magazine. In this article she mentions how she saw the need to teach poetry in a school where not many teachers felt comfortable doing so. She found that students were fearful of poetry and did not think they would like it at first. She did quite a few of the ideas that Bruce Lansky mentioned in his article. After a few visits with a group of children in a fifth grade classroom, Anne got them hooked.
I think a lot of students as well as adults think poetry has to rhyme. For many students it can be difficult to create poems that rhyme. Many of Fletcher's poems are in free-verse style.
Regie Routman writes a book called "Kid's Poems: Teaching third & Fourth Graders to Love Writing Poetry". She states that "when kids are released from the structure of rhyme, they can focus on content and language, and they express themselves easily".
In the poem Snow Angel, the poet is simply telling his audience how to make a "Snow Angel" and adds a bit of imagination. When students are given the freedom of the free-verse style I don't think they are as fearful of poetry as Jessica mentioned. I think this is a good way to introduce poetry.
I definitely agree with you, Rene. I think it is important to give students freedom in choosing to write a free verse poem. I think it not only gives them more options to express themselves creatively, but it also teaches them that not all poems need to rhyme.
In regards to the Squished Squirrel Poem I agree with you Jessica, the teacher told him what he could and could not write about. I also related this poem to the way a boy might think opposed to a girl. What interests boys is different than girls. If he had ideas for a poem his teacher should have given him the option of writing the poem and reading it first before telling him to just write about something else. I understand that the topic does not sound like it would lend itself to something intersting but it really could. It could have been about how he felt when he saw the squirrel, how unfair animals lives are when they have access to travel the road...there are many ideas that could've come out of his topic.
I found a website that had discussed boys and writing (not necessarily poems but writing in general). It stated that often boys have a hard time writing especially when given the topic to write about. Teachers often have a difficult time allowing boys to write about fantasy world, scary topics and squished squirrels. The website has an interview with Ralph Fletcher and another author...I will include the website in my next blog.
The website for Boys and Literacy is http://www.nhpr.org/node/11984 and the interview was with Ralph Fletcher and the book Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices and UNH Professor Tom Newkirk and his book Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. The interview is quite interesting and provides a lot of insite on the topics, physically writing, and mentally being able to think of ideas on mandatory topics.
I also did some research on teaching poetry in a third grade classroom and found a website called Third grade poetry webquest. The website is http://www.spsk12.net/schools/btwes/3rdGradePoetryWebQuest.htm and it provides lessons on teacher many different types of poetry. I may try a few because I realize how much can be said in a poem and if I can get my Harford students to express some of their ideas or feelings in poetry and enjoy doing so this may be a way into their lives.
Of course it is also great to research the author of the book you are reading and learn more about him/her and the different books they have to share. www.ralphfletcher.com/
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