Poetry

Without a doubt, poetry is the most neglected format out there. Teachers simply don’t feel comfortable teaching it and are even scared when hearing the word.

However, it is important to learn what poetry is all about, and how we can help our kids enjoy it as much as we do. There are different criteria that we need to clearly identify when evaluating poetry. Subject, imagery, rhyme, rhythm, and sound such as alliteration are what we always tend to look for in a poem. Poetry gives the opportunity to share emotions, experiences, and visions with poets. According to Jean Le Pere, the six reasons to share poetry with children are for enjoyment, knowledge of concepts, and vocabulary. It also helps children identify with people and situations, understand their feelings better, and grants insights to their feelings and universal emotions. Poems should definitely provide visual images and words that allow children’s imagination to expand.  They must create a certain kind of vision or imagery in a particular kind of way. Most children think of poetry as always rhyming, but that is not always the case. Of course those are the ones they prefer though. They also tend to enjoy narrative poems, those that tell a story, are humorous, include animals or familiar experiences.  When it comes down to writing poems some students really enjoy it because there are no rules. They can simply write about a topic or story. However, the most disliked poems are haiku and free verse. There are many awards given to poetry books. The NCTE award began in the 1970’s and is now given every year.

I’m definitely guilty of sometimes being scared of teaching poetry. I love poetry itself, but teaching it can sometimes be difficult. Learning more about it will unquestionably help me with my future classroom students and someday as a librarian. The characteristics of poetry that children prefer will guide me as to what is best for the age of the students I am teaching. For example, my fourth graders will more than likely enjoy a humorous poem or one that is about a familiar topic to them.  Encouraging to write poetry is also something that I will implement more in my classroom.