Planning and Organization:
My book was a little different than the others seem to be; it wasn't so much a theory of writing or why we write as much as a book just chocked-full of ideas on what to write about and ideas of different kinds of writing for those who wish to write poetry. When i decided what i wanted to teach from this book, i had a hard time narrowing down which of Kowit's many activities to incorporate into my unit, but ultimately elected to teach the three writing prompts that i would most like to do in my own classroom- the object poems using metaphors and similes, the dream poems, and the in-praise poems. I selected these three prompts because I feel like they best represented Kowit's main suggestions of what to keep in mind while writing poetry: meter and device (the object poems), being comfortable with expirimentation (the dream poems), and putting a new spin on an old theme (the in-praise poems). I especially thought that the dream poems would be good to do in a classroom because the unit can actually extend to other areas of study such as surrealism in art and literature and the history of psychology.
I opted to organize the class in chronology with Kowit's text, which may have been a bad idea in hindsight because the activities seemed to get less serious and more fun as we moved along, which, when in a classroom, usually plays out to be more meaningful in reverse. It was a little difficult to fit everything in on time and in an ideal classroom, i would have lots of time to devote to each prompt and include more in-depth classroom exploration of the some of the themes. The hardest part about planning this unit was deciding how to structure a lesson around a book full of little tips and tid-bits of advice for the practicing poet. I wanted to connect Kowit's suggestions with the possibility of extending those suggestions into a reflective and insightful writing class. However, despite the somewhat reversed order of my unit, I feel that the writing activities were the right ones to do. Even though I probably didn't need to do all three, i'm still glad I had the gumption to attempt it!
Teaching Presence and Authority:
I felt pretty nervous at the front of the class in the beginning. It's strange, because I actually feel comfortable in my ability to conduct a classroom and I've always kindof been really good and at-ease with kids in the middle/high school age range. They do not intimidate me whatsoever and I'm not nervous at all to conduct a classroom full of them all day long. However, it's a different vibe you get when you're teaching your peers and you know you are being critiqued. That being said, my nerves did go away pretty quickly and I felt at ease explaining the book and explaining my reasoning behind the assingments. I definately talked too fast (lifelong affliction) and didn't always make myself clear with my instructions. Something I'll have to work on for sure! However, I do think i conducted myself with good presence and authority when I walked around the class to see how everyone was doing with their dream poems and then to see if people needed help with their in-praise poems. I remember sometimes being stuck with a problem or assignment and really appreciating when my teacher would come ask me how it was going...sometimes you just don't feel like reaching out and you need to be reached out too. I liked being able to extend that hand to my classmates as their teacher for the day. I tried to approach the topic in a way that did not make me seem like i'm the Poetry Teaching Guru, rather, I tried approaching the activities as some good ideas not only for us as practicing writers, but also for us as novice teachers who are going to be experimenting with lesson plans for that first year or two. However, I did have a main objective in mind for the discussions and the activities and I think I did a good job using my authority to move the class along when it needed to be moved along and to let the class engage with myself and each other when there was a good discussion going on.
Incorporation of Writing
Well, considering that my whole unit was planned around writing different kinds of poetry, I think I did a pretty good job incorporating writing. I used writing prompts that were directly from Kowit's text, although I "made them mine" a little bit too by having students bring in objects to write about with the object poems and research their dreams with the dream poems. I think that the book itself benefitted me quite a bit as a future teacher and I can only hope that the activities I chose to reflect the book were able to help my classmates as future teachers, too. The importance of teaching this specific writing unit to the class comes with the fact that as writing teachers, we will inevitably have to teach some poetry at some point in our careers and many of us are uneasy and unsure of how to do this...hopefully my indy teach gave my classmates some insight as to why this subject is sometimes hard to approach and possibly a few ways that we can incorporate it into an eclectic classroom full of writing enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. I think that my peers were able to engage as teacher-writers as well as teachers of writing. We all were able to practice our own poetry writing by doing the actual writing activities that were introduced in Kowit's book. We were also able to discuss the reservations about poetry held by teachers and students alike and were able to think critically about what kinds of activities may or may not work in a classroom. By asking the class about their own experiences with poetry in the classroom setting and discussing the issues that students may have with writing and sharing poetry, I was able to prepare my classmates to better think about and practice the art of writing. I think this was best exemplified by Sharon, when she said at the end of the unit that she valued being able to watch the reaction of her classmates to the lesson itself and be able to think critically about how teaching poetry may play out in her own classroom.
Meaningful Connection with Students:
I really wanted the class to have fun with this unit. To me, writing poetry is indeed challenging and frustrating, but most of all it is enjoyable and theraputic to be able to write creatively about a wide range of introspective (and sometimes silly) topics- I wanted my classmates to see that both the act of writing poetry itself as well as teaching poetry to others can be a fun challenge as a writer and as a writing teacher. I wanted to give my classmates writing assignments that valued both the difficult aspects of writing and teaching poetry, like the meter and devices, but that also valued the universality of poetry itself- it's ability to connect humanity by tapping into common shared experiences (like having bizarre dreams) and by cutting across gender/class/ethnicity/cultural/sexuality lines to connect all humanity as one entity (that is grossed out by foul things like leeches and chubby kids). I think that this did resonate with my classmates and I really think that everyone really enjoyed sharing their poetry with one other and laughing at each others wierd personal objects, dreams, phobias, and general personal tokens of humanity. All technicalities aside, this was really my main personal objective for the unit- after the in-praise poems, I feel confident in the successful attainment of that goal...the other stuff (like explaining my directions clearly!) will hopefully come with more practice.
My book was a little different than the others seem to be; it wasn't so much a theory of writing or why we write as much as a book just chocked-full of ideas on what to write about and ideas of different kinds of writing for those who wish to write poetry. When i decided what i wanted to teach from this book, i had a hard time narrowing down which of Kowit's many activities to incorporate into my unit, but ultimately elected to teach the three writing prompts that i would most like to do in my own classroom- the object poems using metaphors and similes, the dream poems, and the in-praise poems. I selected these three prompts because I feel like they best represented Kowit's main suggestions of what to keep in mind while writing poetry: meter and device (the object poems), being comfortable with expirimentation (the dream poems), and putting a new spin on an old theme (the in-praise poems). I especially thought that the dream poems would be good to do in a classroom because the unit can actually extend to other areas of study such as surrealism in art and literature and the history of psychology.
I opted to organize the class in chronology with Kowit's text, which may have been a bad idea in hindsight because the activities seemed to get less serious and more fun as we moved along, which, when in a classroom, usually plays out to be more meaningful in reverse. It was a little difficult to fit everything in on time and in an ideal classroom, i would have lots of time to devote to each prompt and include more in-depth classroom exploration of the some of the themes. The hardest part about planning this unit was deciding how to structure a lesson around a book full of little tips and tid-bits of advice for the practicing poet. I wanted to connect Kowit's suggestions with the possibility of extending those suggestions into a reflective and insightful writing class. However, despite the somewhat reversed order of my unit, I feel that the writing activities were the right ones to do. Even though I probably didn't need to do all three, i'm still glad I had the gumption to attempt it!
Teaching Presence and Authority:
I felt pretty nervous at the front of the class in the beginning. It's strange, because I actually feel comfortable in my ability to conduct a classroom and I've always kindof been really good and at-ease with kids in the middle/high school age range. They do not intimidate me whatsoever and I'm not nervous at all to conduct a classroom full of them all day long. However, it's a different vibe you get when you're teaching your peers and you know you are being critiqued. That being said, my nerves did go away pretty quickly and I felt at ease explaining the book and explaining my reasoning behind the assingments. I definately talked too fast (lifelong affliction) and didn't always make myself clear with my instructions. Something I'll have to work on for sure! However, I do think i conducted myself with good presence and authority when I walked around the class to see how everyone was doing with their dream poems and then to see if people needed help with their in-praise poems. I remember sometimes being stuck with a problem or assignment and really appreciating when my teacher would come ask me how it was going...sometimes you just don't feel like reaching out and you need to be reached out too. I liked being able to extend that hand to my classmates as their teacher for the day. I tried to approach the topic in a way that did not make me seem like i'm the Poetry Teaching Guru, rather, I tried approaching the activities as some good ideas not only for us as practicing writers, but also for us as novice teachers who are going to be experimenting with lesson plans for that first year or two. However, I did have a main objective in mind for the discussions and the activities and I think I did a good job using my authority to move the class along when it needed to be moved along and to let the class engage with myself and each other when there was a good discussion going on.
Incorporation of Writing
Well, considering that my whole unit was planned around writing different kinds of poetry, I think I did a pretty good job incorporating writing. I used writing prompts that were directly from Kowit's text, although I "made them mine" a little bit too by having students bring in objects to write about with the object poems and research their dreams with the dream poems. I think that the book itself benefitted me quite a bit as a future teacher and I can only hope that the activities I chose to reflect the book were able to help my classmates as future teachers, too. The importance of teaching this specific writing unit to the class comes with the fact that as writing teachers, we will inevitably have to teach some poetry at some point in our careers and many of us are uneasy and unsure of how to do this...hopefully my indy teach gave my classmates some insight as to why this subject is sometimes hard to approach and possibly a few ways that we can incorporate it into an eclectic classroom full of writing enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. I think that my peers were able to engage as teacher-writers as well as teachers of writing. We all were able to practice our own poetry writing by doing the actual writing activities that were introduced in Kowit's book. We were also able to discuss the reservations about poetry held by teachers and students alike and were able to think critically about what kinds of activities may or may not work in a classroom. By asking the class about their own experiences with poetry in the classroom setting and discussing the issues that students may have with writing and sharing poetry, I was able to prepare my classmates to better think about and practice the art of writing. I think this was best exemplified by Sharon, when she said at the end of the unit that she valued being able to watch the reaction of her classmates to the lesson itself and be able to think critically about how teaching poetry may play out in her own classroom.
Meaningful Connection with Students:
I really wanted the class to have fun with this unit. To me, writing poetry is indeed challenging and frustrating, but most of all it is enjoyable and theraputic to be able to write creatively about a wide range of introspective (and sometimes silly) topics- I wanted my classmates to see that both the act of writing poetry itself as well as teaching poetry to others can be a fun challenge as a writer and as a writing teacher. I wanted to give my classmates writing assignments that valued both the difficult aspects of writing and teaching poetry, like the meter and devices, but that also valued the universality of poetry itself- it's ability to connect humanity by tapping into common shared experiences (like having bizarre dreams) and by cutting across gender/class/ethnicity/cultural/sexuality lines to connect all humanity as one entity (that is grossed out by foul things like leeches and chubby kids). I think that this did resonate with my classmates and I really think that everyone really enjoyed sharing their poetry with one other and laughing at each others wierd personal objects, dreams, phobias, and general personal tokens of humanity. All technicalities aside, this was really my main personal objective for the unit- after the in-praise poems, I feel confident in the successful attainment of that goal...the other stuff (like explaining my directions clearly!) will hopefully come with more practice.
6 comments:
I thought the disgusting praise poem prompt was perfect. I could just see such a method being presented in a high school classroom and how much the students would enjoy it. You definitely presented a few great ways of helping students to become involved with poetry.
It also seemed that you were at ease with the classroom. There is a general laid back air about you that I think is conductive to encouraging students to partake in the activities. I didn't feel threatened by your prompts and I believe this relaxed attitude will translate well to your future students.
As far as suggestions, as I related to Meredith, try to be careful about reading off of the dry erase board. When explaining things it is important that you face your students so that they feel engaged in what you are relating. Of course, there is nothing more natural than reading what you have written on the board to the class, but it can be ostracizing to the student.
One other point that seemed slightly incongruent was the dream poem. It was a hard writing prompt to undertake. Perhaps a way to get around this would be to have us free write about dreams we have had just to concrete our ideas. Then to instruct us in trying to bring our ideas together in a poem.
I want to tell you that I thought your individual teach was great. You were confident in your topic and the students' ability to complete the prompts. Thank you for showing me a couple inventive and inspiring poetry prompts to use in the future. I thought your lesson was a smashing success.
Kelly,
I got some good ideas for poetry prompts. I value realizing that I can write a poem about anything (which works well with Murray's argument that a writer must write every day). Bringing something personal in was wonderful - I think H.S. kids would really love that. The disgusting poem would also be great for adolescents. Any chance for true language play instead of writing that seems very dry and academic is a great hook for young people. I loved writing about my dream, too. I actually dealt with a reaccuring nightmare so once again poetry=therapy.
I wish the metaphor poem had been less structured. I had a really hard time writing metaphors and similes about the object and then turning it into a poem about myself somehow (because we were supposed to bring in something about ourselves). I would rather have written a list of how I was like the object, and then gotten started on the poem (or if this was what we were supposed to do I was confused). Even with those constraints, I would rather have had it even more open, where I just wrote a poem about myself while looking at that object and thinking about what it represented to me. However, I completely understand that you were trying to teach the use of these particular literary techniques of figurative language, which is something we will have to teach our students, and this is a great activity to do that.
I also kind of wish that we hadn't written a bad poem first. It felt very much like "negative practice," which is a no-no in the therapy world. After that every metaphor I thought of, I was unwilling to write down because I started thinking: wait, is this bad poetry? It is! Still, I say "kind of wish" because it was very fun to write a bad poem, and I thought John's and Dan's were hilarious, so I ultimately value that experience.
I came expecting to enjoy myself, and I did. Now I need a few more of the nitty gritties for teaching poetry, the how-to's, the step-by-steps. For some of the activities I wonder: we did it, but would adolescents? If doing these in my own room I would give more explicit directions and more time to accomplish each task (I often felt very rushed). I admit that I'm a slow worker, though, and I'm positive that you know that more time would be necessary if these activities were taught in a middle or high school classroom.
In conclusion, I just want to say that you were the perfect person to teach poetry. You clearly have a passion for it, and it was evident that you put a lot of planning, thought, and work into your teach. Bravo!
Kelly,
I must agree with Meredith's observation that your true love of poetry and your passion for thinking of ways to teach it helped us all to catch the Poetry-writing-bug. Thank you for providing one of the most enjoyable writing prompts of the semester. It is undeniable that the "Gross Poem" was a total hit. Watching everyone's noses crinkle up and then getting caught up in those contagious bouts of laughter was great therapy for us all!
We talked a little about thinking outside of the box as far as structuring lessons in a chronological way to the ideas in a book. I was happy to see that as we chatted you began to reconstruct your concept of how you might introduce these poems into your classroom in the future. It was great to see the creative wheels spinning in your head and listen to your ideas about future applications. This represents a step in the right direction. We can count ourselves lucky if our "well-laid plans" actually turn out the way we initially envisioned them. A better test of a teacher who values her students and her own growth, is her ability to reflect back and consider how she can improve the next time around.
I think, perhaps out of nervousness, you had a tendency to sit behind your desk. Consider your body language and what it says to your students. If you are nervous, a good way to shake those nerves is by getting up and circulating around the room. You did this later on--and by doing so were able to communicate your interest in your students work. Take it a step further and sit down to write with them. Join a group during their discussion. Become a frequent flier in their conversations.
Providing your own written examples of poetry is also another great way to engage your students. Thank you for sharing your own writing! This sends a very positive and strong message to your students. Use your own work or the work of others to get students started on their writing. Don't forget to give some examples of the type of thing you are looking for. Students will respond better if you can model how the assignment works and then set them free to create.
Overall, I think you were able to bring some really fantastic writing ideas to us as a group. Getting kids into poetry can be difficult--but your lessons proved that poetry is not akin to a trip to the dentist's office, but rather a little piece of the passion within each of us.
Good Job Kelly!
Indy Teach Grade: A
Kelly,
I thought you did a fabulous job on your indy teach. Your passion for poetry was contagious in our class that day. I am not a poem kind of person and I not only enjoyed your activities (as did everyone) but I am happy to have some new ways to approach teaching poetry in the classroom that will be engaging for students like me that are not that interested in poetry.
You seemed very confident in your delivery but I would recommend getting up and standing in front of the class some of the time and definitely circulating around the room as you did during one of our writing activities.
I think I would have to agree with what Maureen said about the dream poem. She had a great idea of doing a free write first to gather some concrete ideas and then get creative.
I think you are going to be a great teacher--you seemed like a teacher up in front of the classroom!
Like everyone else, the Gross Poems were a smash hit! You did an excellent job choosing activity subjects. (I'm not sure exactly how your chosen text is formatted--if it's only a series of prompts, it's still a worthwhile resource.) I don't recall whether you said you particularly enjoyed your text, but it seemed to meld well with your personal style, and I thought you used it effectively in your lesson.
You mention you're a "fast-talker" but I don't pick up on it. In fact, I think you express yourself well, your contributions to discussion--more of a facilitator than an authority--were perceptive, and you paced the lesson remarkably well. You were able to elicit some decent writing from us in a very short amount of time.
Good job!
Kelly,
You provided us an awesome and memorable presentation towards poetry. I think everyone’s writing really flourished with your prompts and questions. We could all tell you enjoyed being in front of the class sharing your work, as well as listening to ours. One thing I noticed about your style of presentation was how relaxed it was. Your presentation of the material was very loose and seemed more like a conversation with the class than a lecture; I really liked this. It made me feel at ease with sharing my work. The prompts you came up with were really outstanding; everyone was quick to read both their poem about the object and what they found gross. As a person with horrible, barely legible writing, my only suggestion is to write bigger and clearer on the board. I know that’s a bit of a minute critique, but really you did a very nice job. Thanks for creating an enjoyable lesson.
Sincerely,
Brian Schiller
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