Text Structures from Poetry Grades 4-12

No more worries/fears about teaching poetry writing. Or, perhaps, the guilt feelings that arise from not doing so. If you're like me, that is, you may not be sure how to approach the subject… although rather sure it should be approached somehow or some way. This course will provide exactly what you need. A do-able resource that sorts out the process of writing poetry and outlines quality lessons that are coupled with winsome poetry selections and impressive student samples. Problem solved.

The lesson process is straight-forward – free write on a specified topic, read and re-read a poem, examine the same poem chunked up and sorted out into a basic structure, re-read the poem and then write your own poem. The lesson outlines that are provided are exactly what your student needs to work through the process (probably with your help – at least at first) in order to produce poetry that will likely leave both of you in awe. Each of the 50 lessons walk through this process. A topic is presented – for example, “think of something that happened when you were little, something that didn't make sense – but now looking back you wish you could change things". This is designed to prompt your students' free-writing. If they don't have experience with this, it may take a while and some additional prompts may be in order to elicit quality contributions.

The reading and re-reading part of the process is important. Reading aloud is also important. For some reason, images sparked by words seems to benefit from coming through the hearing path. Accompanying these readings two things are happening. The teacher is mentioning some things to “notice" (helpfully included in the teaching notes) and the student is to underline anything that strikes them.

It's only after this part of the process that the student is shown the “chunked" version of the poem (also provided in the lesson). This chunking identifies segments of the poem and condenses them to a “structure." For instance, the poem “Parting" by Octavio Quintanilia has this structure: what I was too young to understand, what happened long ago, and what I wish for now. The overall theme is “making sense of something painful." Students are expected to chunk their copy of the poem and reread it while watching the movement of the structure. Then, it's time for them to write their own poem. They have at their disposal a page of thoughts, examples of poems they like, and a text structure. This is a quick activity; usually only a few minutes are allowed. The remainder of the lesson gives some example poems from other students.

All in all, this is an amazing resource. There are 50 well-prepared lessons that are pick up and go. Lessons will probably take 40-55 minutes. Poems that are used as “mentor texts" are taken from both contemporary and classic poetry. The goal is to give students both analytical skills and a love of poetry. You have a lot of flexibility. You can look through the poems (and their structures/themes) and “shop;" choosing the one you think most appropriate for your student at this point in time.

There are some very helpful Appendices. First is a complete collection of the poem text structures. This allows for quick perusal and choosing. Then there are glossary items – all those things everyone always talks about with poetry. Remember those “Notice" portions of the lessons. These things are mentioned, pointed out, and appreciated at this point in every lesson. It also gives you examples of Journal pages that can be used to build a student's notebook on these poetry terms. These journal pages are available as downloads from the publisher's website. One appendix outlines various ways to improve a poem – things like trim your adverbs, add a little dialogue, and find your most ordinary nouns and use metaphors for them. Wait, there's more! The last appendix gives some fun facts for each of the contemporary poems/poets.

Use this resource in a single year with a single student, or over the course of multiple years with multiple students. The rich content of this lesson material will help to ensure that your poetry insecurities will be a thing of the past. 241 pgs, pb.