Task 4- Shannon Ruth Gill and "The forgotten genre of children's poetry"

I really enjoyed Shannon Ruth Gill’s article The forgotten genre of children’s poetry (2007) and the way in which she informs readers that educators teaching poetry rarely read works comprised by 20^th century authors, but instead by “’great poets’” (p. 622) who are widely recognized by their names and written works. Individuals are influenced to see poetry (which, to their knowledge, is mainly written by popular poets) as “understood and evaluated by academics” because “this is the approach most often taught in schools…” (p. 623). The article clearly says that in regards to poetry instruction, educators’ “emphasis is on knowledge---knowing the types of poems and the names of major poets—rather than understanding, enjoyment, or participation” (Gill (2007), p.623-624). Students should be taught that poetry is a form of self-expression, letting writer’s write about their lives, experiences, and feelings. Children need to be able to recognize that anyone can be a poet, not solely “big-name” writers. Gill (2007) also mentions that teachers can the main persuaders in keeping poetry alive and visible, saying we can “influence the publishing industry to print more books of children’s poetry and to include them in book clubs and book fairs” (p. 625).

For starters, I am very interested in poetry writing and feel like it is a wonderful way to show students how they can personally connect to their writing; in her article The forgotten genre of children’s poetry (2007), Shannon Gill explicitly says that she teaches children and their families “the idea that people write poetry to capture their thoughts, feelings, and experiences” (p. 623). She makes an excellent point about “students understand what poetry is, enjoy reading it, feel the desire and ability to participate in writing it and appreciate what makes one poem better than another” (Gill (2007), p. 623). Surprisingly, my class of students has already began looking into poetry and responding or writing a little of their own to reflect. Each student has their own, individual poetry journal that they can read and write in. We only partook in using these journals two or three times, but I feel that the children seem to be interested in reading a specific poem and completing a supplementary activity given to go with the poem. Because of this, I think I may be able to incorporate the poetry journals into my two week unit planning for writing, depending on what other activities and lessons I plan on teaching. It would definitely fit nicely into the reading or writing instruction of our day, mixing up the activities the children participate in throughout the week.

Both reading poetry by various author’s and writing responses to poetry enriches my classroom’s writing instruction. My classroom is composed of a diverse level of learners; reading a work by another author and writing responses to that work or as a result of that piece allows for my class to learn literacy in many ways. Comprehension strategies, recall and response, retelling, and interpretation are all important parts of literacy that poetry can provide to my students when they read and write it.

In order to use the approach of introducing more poetry into my classroom, I feel that I would need to be knowledgeable about specific poems that cater to the interests of my students. Not only this, but I would like to be able to extend off of particular poems, creating lessons and activities that would be beneficial to my class and teach them more about poetry and it’s writing process. I feel like Shannon Ruth Gill’s article The forgotten genre of children’s poetry (2007) made a great point in stating that “poetry is more than just a body of ‘great works’ written long ago or forms (narrative vs. lyric)” (p. 623). I can understand why a lot of educators may want to stick to the more familiar pieces of poetry or ones written by author’s that are popular and highly recognized; the fact of the matter is, though, that children need to be introduced to newer poetry of the present time and be shown that anyone can write about any topic they choose. Additionally, I feel that I may have to relearn some of the components of writing poetry that I was once taught. Bringing my own, personal knowledge into the classroom could really help the children see that you do not have to be a professional writer or a poet to know how to construct a great piece of poetry.

After reading about assessment, I have realized that using solely one form of assessment will not provide me with very accurate information about the literacy levels of my students. I now know that many different techniques exist that I can use to gather data. For instance, I think that it is a good idea for some kind of student self-evaluation form, where the children themselves get to respond in their own opinion about the ways they are learning. Asking them questions individually and confidentially could provide for truthful responses about the strengths and weaknesses of their writing. Moreover, as I plan for instruction, I can sue these individual assessment surveys to help me consider all the various levels of learners I have. Not all of my students are confident in writing and a lot of them have trouble even starting to pre-plan about a piece of writing. I need to think about where each one struggles and where each is comfortable when writing out in our journals. Then, when I write my lessons and instructions, I will know where to allocate my time and on what elements of our writing I need to focus on for my students.

Works Cited

Gill, S.R. (2007). The forgotten genre of children's poetry. The Reading Teacher, 60(7), 622-625.