Reading in the Middle, Junior and Senior High Schools, Spring, 2010

As a special education major I will be certified to teach students kindergarten through age twenty one. Having said that, right now I am hoping to work with students in elementary school. In the elementary setting, I must be prepared to teach all subjects, hopefully in an inclusive setting. I think that the lesson I found on ReadWriteThink would be a great way to work with younger kids on poetry and oral presentations as well as building community and allowing the kids to work together toward a common goal.
This lesson is titled A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry. Before looking at this lesson, I had never heard of found poetry but it is such a great idea. Basically what you do is the teacher reads a favorite book of the class to the class and the students choose words that they like or find interesting. During the first session, the teacher goes through the entire process that is explained below and models what exactly a found poem is and how you write one. This subject struck a chord with me because sometimes when I hear a word I like the way it sounds or I think “wow that’d be a good word to use in my paper”. During the second session, the students are read the book and when the students hear words that they like, they write down those words. After the book has been read aloud, the students as a class write their own lines of the found poem using the words they picked out of the book they read together. Then, the teacher records that poem as the students author it aloud (good for a teacher to model good handwriting while recording); the teacher will type it later in a script format. The next session, the teacher passes out the newly written poem that the students have composed which now takes the form of a script. From there, the students memorize their part of the poem. Family members and friends are invited in for the performance of this poem as it is interpreted and performed by all class members. This is such a great way to build community among students and involve and collaborate with parents outside the formal setting of meetings and conferences. This is a great way for students to get acquainted with different words, heighten their vocabulary in an innovative way, and depending on the book chose, target certain words that they are learning for extra practice. Furthermore, it is a great way to practice oral reading without putting kids on the spot because they get to practice and only have on line, as well as practicing what “good oral reading” constitutes.
This lesson aligns with two first grade English standards in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study and one kindergarten standard. Additionally, the site gives you access to a “found poem planning sheet” where students have a map, a visual aid, for combining words into a phrase that will be contributed to the class poem. This will work well for learners who are visual. The oral reading addresses those learners who learn better through listening. The writing and providing scripts also appeal to the visual learner. Cutting up of the script will appeal to those students who are hands on. Really, you can make this lesson apply to all learners and accommodate a great number of different needs of different students. Similarly, for higher level learners, the interactive Venn diagram provided on the site comparing found poetry and other poetry would be a great way to differentiate for gifted students. The site also gives you an interactive word mover game that can be played on the internet, maybe via a Smart Board which would be great to engage students in a whole group setting but individualized input because incorporating technology is always exciting for students.
I really love this lesson plan. In school, I always loved reading poetry in the form of Dr. Seuss books and such but was never really good at writing my own poems. This would have been so fun because it’s a manageable amount to ask students to write (one line) and then they get to put it together and perform it. They are taking the ideas of others, reworking them, and then presenting them in a unique authentic way. I think this would be a very enjoyable activity to do with my students.

I really enjoyed reading about this lesson plan. Like Elle, I always enjoyed Dr. Seuss books, but when instructed to write my own poems they would always be corny and not good. This lesson plan would be good to teach children how to write poetry, and could act as a guide in teaching them what words to use. As a special education major too, I may have to teach a variety of subjects--if instructed to teach about a found poem, I would have had no idea where to begin, but this website and more specifically this lesson plan would be very beneficial not only to me, but also my students. Many students in special education may have learning difficulties, this lesson plan seems like it would be a great tool to help students feel more confident about their writing, as it gives students a way to use words they have found, versus words they come up with on their own. This lesson plan can also act as a self-esteem booster, since it encourages family involvement when sharing the poems. By including all the students words and lines of poetry in the class poem, students will develop a greater confidence. Overall, this lesson plan seems like a great idea to use in across a variety of grade levels.

The lesson including the anticipatory guide is a great way to get students engaged in reading and give them a purpose for doing that reading. Personally, I do better when I am reading with a purpose of finding out specific information than when I am just aimlessly reading and then am asked questions later. Any prereading activities used are great for focusing students. I thought that the answers to the questions on the anticipatory guide were pretty clean cut and obvious answers but after reading the article, I realized that there were studies done that support and oppose those statements. It became more of a way for me to have topics to "research" via the article and look at the arguments for and against my initial claims. Using a prereading tool like this anticipatory guide is a great way to kick off instruction and get students excited and focused.