With all the emphasis on novels and non-fiction text, ELA teachers probably don’t teach enough poetry. However, there are compelling reasons why poetry should be included in the ELA curriculum, even if students struggle with it. I’ve worked hard over the past year to include more poetry in my curriculum.
I’m frequently asked by other people what books I teach. No one ever asks what poems I teach. There’s no question that language arts curriculum centers around novels and our classroom can get pretty novel heavy if we’re not careful. We all know about the need for non-fiction. But let’s
Sometimes when I teach poetry I get caught up in getting my students to understand what a poem means and neglect how poetic devices help create that meaning. Diction, syntax, rhyme – all of these are tools poets use in their writing. But how can we get students to understand how
For the most part, my students put up with poetry. Many of them don’t really like it. They find it difficult and it makes them feel dumb. And most of the common strategies that we use, like “SOAPS,” give them too much to manage and make them feel like poetry
What does a piece of writing need to do in order to be called a poem? This is the question I asked my seniors at the beginning of class this week. We had just finished up a poetry unit on lyric poetry and to finish off I wanted them
There are a lot of suggestions floating around out there about what to do on the first day of school. But what should you do on the second day in Language Arts? I already did a post on using a short story to establish how you approach the task of
