Kolb's Model of Reflection(McLeod, 2013)on week 7 regarding some poetry writing strategies I found interesting, the importance of poetry writing in the classroom and how having strategies will help students become more successful poetry writers. Use the statements below to better guide you:
Concrete Experience: “what I did” section
The topic of UNIT 7 was UNIT 7: Teaching Writing, Part II: Poetry.
When I opened this topic, I was very pleasantly surprised, because I have been writing poems in Russian since I was twelve years old. It was the most pleasant and successful experience in my life, because literature teachers liked my poems very much and even printed them in school almanacs. In the last year of school I turned out to be the most popular girl among the eleventh grade because I was a poet.
So I was very curious to learn that there are real poetry lessons that help children from a very young age to develop their poetic talents, learn new words and gain confidence in sharing their work with their classmates.
Reflective Observations: ‘what I wonder’ section
This week's resource (Carter, 2014), was a truly amazing tool for creating your own workshop with lots of ideas for working through the process of creating poems. I tried List Poems with eighth grade students, but they approached the task from the perspective of composing sentences rather than writing a poem. It is difficult for Russian-speaking students who are in the Russian programme to imagine such activities.
This is what surprised me most when I compared the two different approaches to teaching. In the Russian programme there are no lessons where students are taught to write poems. But there are lessons where they read poems by different poets, discuss what the author wanted to say, and later learn and recite these poems by heart. There are even special literary evenings where students participate. There they recite poems by heart, observing rhythm and dramatic pauses for expressiveness.
Also in the older grades it is obligatory to study the biography of the poet, his motives for writing poems and his favourite poem size, which he usually used. Classical Russian poetry is based on five models (metres) known since Antiquity: chorus, iambus, amphibrachium, anapest, dactyl. They are studied at school as verse sizes. The sizes are distinguished by the device of stops. A stop is a repeating group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line (How to determine the size of a poem: 3 easy ways, 2024).
An in-depth study of poetry by different authors and memorising poems by heart becomes a catalyst for Russian students to develop a talent for poetry.
Abstract Conceptualization: “what I learned” so what” section
Since my usual assignments when working with poetry were reading and memorising, poetry writing workshops became a very important and interesting learning strategy for me. In the process of creating a poetry writing workshop to use in the classroom to help students write poetry, including a draft plan to further expand poetry writing activities in the classroom, I scrutinised the stages: thinking time, brainstorming time, writing time, sharing time. It was a new experience that struck me as simple and effective. I think I should definitely make this technique part of my plan for student teaching.
Application “now what” section
At the moment, I am exploring online resources that provide lesson plans for poetry. For example, on poets.org (‘Lesson Plans,’ 2015) I found a lesson plan for ‘Poetry’ by Marianne Moore (Poets, n.d.). This poem is appropriate for lessons with students in High School and Middle School, and furthermore the Classroom Activities echo the steps outlined in the Week 7 workshop. I also liked 12 Super Fun Poetry Lesson Plans for Middle and High School (2023) because it has a ‘hook’ element that helps to hook the audience and draw attention to the lesson.
In conclusion, I would like to add that this journey of exploring poetry lesson plans is just beginning. And I discover new horizons every time with great appreciation for this course. The topic of literature has always been my favourite and this course also occupies a special line in the rating of my preferences.
References
12 Super Fun Poetry Lesson Plans for Middle and High School. (2023, March 25). TeachWriting.org. https://www.teachwriting.org/612th/2023/3/21/12-super-fun-poetry-lesson-plans-for-middle-and-high-school
Carter, James. Page to Stage : Developing Writing, Speaking and Listening Skills in Primary Schools, David Fulton Publishers, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/univ-people-ebooks/detail.action?docID=668689.Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-10-19 19:47:14.
How to determine the size of a poem: 3 easy ways (2024). Сила Лиса. https://media.foxford.ru/articles/wiki-literatura-kak-opredelit-razmer-stihotvoreniya
lesson plans. (2015, September 26). Academy of American Poets. https://poets.org/lesson-plans
McLeod, S. (2013). Kolb-learning styles. Simplypsychology.org. http://cei.hkust.edu.hk/files/public/simplypsychology_kolb_learning_styles.pdf
Poets, A. of A. (n.d.). Teach This Poem: “Poetry” by Marianne Moore. Poets.org. https://poets.org/lesson-plan/teach-poem-poetry-marianne-moore
