Last fall I was all geared up to start a poetry unit, but then my units were shuffled around a bit and it was not possible to begin when I had originally thought. I recently did a post over on my original blog about buying Nancie Atwell's Naming the World: A Year of Poetry Lesson. Yesterday and today were the first two days that I introduced our daily poetry; it has been so great. When I watched the DVD that accompanied the book and read about the implementing the resource I remember how Atwell said that the video was taken after the students were very used to the daily poetry routine, so I was not sure what to expect for the first day. I did not know how receptive my students would be to the poetry and how thoughtful their post mark-up comments would be. To my delight, it seemed natural even from the original attempt. I will definitely do this daily all year next year, rather than just the last few weeks.
We are also reading Sharon Creech's Love That Dog, and I put a twist on the journalling assignment that my students have been doing all year long. Now all of their journals will be in verse. It was a perfect segueway into introducing Creech's book because many of the boys comments fell right in line with Jack's when I first mentioned the change (poetry is for girls) and from both girls and boys I heard (I don't know how to do poetry or I refuse). Because of their comments they could identify even more with Jack and it made the reading that much more enjoyable. I am excited to see their first poetry attempts and how they evolve as we continue with the unit.
Tomorrow I will be featuring other classroom library books that are novels written in verse such as Heartbeat, I Heart You, You Haunt Me, and The Poet Slave of Cuba.
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