Reading and Analyzing Poetry
from NCTE INBOX 4/5/05

Now that National Poetry Month is underway, it's a great time to focus your classroom activities on reading and analyzing poetry.

Visit the ReadWriteThink Calender at
http://www.readwritethink.org/calendar/calendar_day.asp?id=478

These lesson plans and classroom-ready resources can get you started:

Growing Readers and Writers with Help from Mother Goose (E)
Tap the familiar rhyming patterns of nursery rhymes to help students identify familiar chunks of words that they can use in their own writing in this K-2 ReadWriteThink lesson plan.

Compiling Poetry Collections and a Working Definition of Poetry (E)
Introduce poetry forms and craft elements as students explore poetry about everyday topics or themes by creating their own poetry collections in this 3-5 ReadWriteThink lesson plan.

Weaving the Threads: Integrating Poetry Annotation and Web Technology (M)
Engage students in meaningful research using poetry as a focal point. Students identify words and phrases in a poem by a Native American and, in the process, learn about Native American culture and history in this 6-8 ReadWriteThink lesson plan.

Varying Views of America (S)
Explore how perspective affects tone in this lesson plan that focuses on an analysis of Walt Whitman's “I Hear America Singing,” Langston Hughes' “I, Too, Sing America,” and Maya Angelou's “On the Pulse of the Morning” in this 9-12 ReadWriteThink lesson plan.

"Anthologizing Transformation: Breaking Down Students' 'Private Theories' about Poetry" (C)
Challenge students to look through a handful of poetry collections or anthologies, seeking 20 poems they like and thus understand or want to understand to some extent with the ideas outlined in this Teaching English in the Two-Year College article.

"The Free Verse Spectrum" (C)
Articulate the diversity of free verse by pairing poems that demonstrate the range of poetic expression that free verse encompasses with the strategies explored in this College English article.

For more ideas for teaching poetry, see the Poetry Teacher Resource Collection, which includes links to additional articles, lesson plans, and other resources.

NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this INBOX is provided for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 04-05-05.

Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary, M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, G=General).

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