Response to Poetry

Poetry was something that I always enjoyed analyzing. However, I hated when teachers made us write our own poems in class, it always made me feel extremely unconfortable. I would sit there just staring at my paper or computer screen trying to think of something but nothing ever came. So for me, poetry assignments were pretty awful. I did not find the same self expression other people did and thus I would always dread poetry units. I think this is because I never really learned how to write poetry. I could easily label all of the devices used in a poem and talk about the meaning, but actually writing my own poem was not something I enjoyed. It got to the point where I would sometimes just not do the assignment at all if I knew it wasn't weighted too heavily in my final grade for the class.

After reading the two articles and the chapter on poetry by Christensen, I've learned about how I can use poetry as a future teacher as well as why it is important for students to not just analzye poems, but also write them. One thing all three of the texts have in common is that all of the authors feel very strongly about how it is important for students to write poetry in order to get a deeper meaning from it. Kati Macaluso states that a poem "requires that the writer be keenly present to an experience, and all its characters, sights, sounds and senses" which is something she clearly feels is important for students to do. Jen McConnel, writer of the article The Teacher/ Poet in V Parts also discusses her experiences with teaching poetry. After she had moved to High School she mentions that she initially  stopped having students write their own poetry, soomethig she wishes she could go back and change (as a side note I would like to say that I appreciated the reference she made to Harry Potter with the time-turner comment). McConnel tells us that "If we want our students to be able to go beyond analysis and explore the forms and functions of poetry from a space of creative play, we certainly must encourage them to try on a poetic identity". It seems that both authors know the importance of encouraging students to write poetry.

Linda Christensen writes in her chapter different strategies to get students to write poetry. For some people poetry probably comes a lot easier than to others. I feel as though I never had clear instruction on how to write poetry and that made it much more of a chore. One of the strategies that Christensen tells us about is how she asked her students to "read back over each part and write in the margin what the poet is writing about, how you connect to that part, and why you think it changes his writing style in each section" (Christensen 34). This strategy forces students to look deeper into a poem. Christensen presents a lot of important information that I will be able to apply and use as a teacher one day. Her chapter gives me a better idea of how I can go about teaching this topic in an effective way that I would not have considered before.