I wouldn't consider myself a teacher of poetry, but this week I've tried a few things that really have worked. One of the major practices that is working for my classroom is the amount of poetry I'm reading. I've always glanced at poetry, but never really anything more than the surface. I find a quick meaning and move on to the next prose story we are studying, because it was "easier" to teach. Now, I found myself wanting to teach more poetry.
It's really a fascinating thing for me professionally. I've always stayed away from it, because I either thought it was boring or it was hard to teach. Today, we looked at a few lines of Whitman's "Song of Myself". I've watched Dead Poets Society, but never really studied the poem before. I pulled out just a little to go over in class, and I was amazed by how much the students wanted to explore this poem. A discussion that I had planned for 20 minutes, lasted almost 45. I suppose that I'm more energetic about poetry now, but I never imagined this reaction. I'm looking forward to doing more of this in the coming weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment