Exploring Poetry

Scaffolding

Students who are not familiar with writing poetry might need some scaffolds before they feel confident in creating it. There are several ways for educators to help their students and use scaffolds to make the writing process a lot smoother.

Mentor Texts

Mentor texts are welcomed and encouraged in any genre of writing that educators teach. However, it could be especially helpful in poetry. There is a possibility that students have not been very exposed to different poems before. Without having poems as mentor texts, they might not know where to begin in their writing process. But when they have something to read and lean on, they can begin to get an idea of what they want their poem to look like.

Suggestions:

· Firefly July

· All the Small Poems and Fourteen More

· The Crossover

· Forest Has a Song

· Thanku

· With My Hands

· Out of Wonder

Students should have poetry read aloud to them regularly to get their minds in the accustomed and intrigued in poetry. The educator should follow up by asking them questions that will help them assess their frame of mind when reading the poetry.

Instead having students prod and try to understand what the author meant in their poem, educators should ask questions that will support their creative minds. Asking the right questions will have students excited to read and write poetry. However, asking the wrong questions might have students stray away from being authentic poets in the future.

Questions to Ask:

· What stood out to you in the poem?

· How did you feel as you read along?

· What words did you notice in the poem?

· What did the poem remind you of?

Asking these questions to facilitate a discussion in class will be very beneficial for many reasons. These questions are open-ended questions that do not have a right/wrong answer. This will help students who may be too shy to speak up and answer the questions without fear of recourse. Hearing other students make connections and hear their frame of mind when reading the poetry will help students gain insight and knowledge from one other that they wouldn't have had before. All of these questions are going to get students thinking about what they enjoyed about the poem. They might think about the things they liked that the author did that they might want to try out in their poem later on.

After the educator has guided them through a discussion that will help them start to make sense of the creative process when writing the poetry, students can start to try out the poetry for themselves. Going off of the process of "I Do - We Do - You Do" or gradual release of responsibility, the first writing will be from the teacher showing the students how to write poetry. The educator will act as the mentor and choose a poem. With the poem chosen, they'll get to try out the writing style of that poem with their own topic. They will then start their writing while verbally explaining their mental process throughout. Students will use this to think about their own mental process and use the educator as a guide. When it is the students turn to try it out, have them take notes before they begin writing the poem. This will help them brainstorm several ideas and not get stuck in the middle of the poem.

Poems to Try Out:

· All the Small Poems and Fourteen More: Flamingo

· Out of Wonder: How to Write a Poem

· Firefly July: The Red Wheelbarrow

· The Crossover: Dribbling

Look at the simplicity of the "flamingo" poem. The author just observed something very simple in nature and wrote down the key observation. With the "How to Write a Poem", students could take the "how to" aspect of it and turn it into something new. Writing in the form of a poem, would would they teach someone to do? "The Red Wheelbarrow" poem has beautiful simplicity in it. Students would find an inanimate object near them and use it to write something beautiful about the importance of that every day object. Lastly, the "dribbling" poem is a great way for students to have fun with the style of writing. They can play around with the rhythm and rhyme of the story, the font, and the movement of the characters. These poems are great starters for students to have fun with!

Finding a Topic:

· Find ordinary things around the room

· Write about a memory you have

· Write about things you observe around you

· See things in a different way you haven't before

· Write about people in your life

· Write about a question you have or are curious about

· Recreate something you have already written

Mental Process & Note Taking:

· Observe and describe your topic with the "meaning toolbox" (Heard, 1999, pg. 64)

· Use your "music toolbox" to create rhythm or repetition (Heard, 1999, pg. 64)

· Write down any memories you have with the topic

· Draw it out, what does it make you think of?

Maybe at the end, some of the student's poems will begin to look like this:

Observational Poetry with Nature "So Much Depends Upon" Poem