Fourth Grade: Fourth grade was the first time I really remember spending time on poetry. I am sure we had worked on it in previous grades; I just did not remember any of it. I can remember being introduced to Shel Silverstein, Emily Dickinson, Edward Lear, and so many more. I fell in love with it! I loved the mystery behind each poem and trying to figure out what the author was really trying to say.
We were working on a poetry unit. I could remember writing various poems and ten publishing our favorites and them getting hung around the room, in the halls, and reading them aloud. About a week after finishing the unit, the teacher came in with a large box of little books. All the books were the same. They were small, and had a hard navy blue cover. She passed one out to every student. As we began to flip through the books, we realized they were our poems. She had taken our poems from the unit and had them published into a book. Each page was a different poem, including the title, and our names as the author. I remember my poem, Fall, was written in there. I do not remember what the exactly poem said. Since then, I have lost that book. But I cannot began to tell you how excited and proud we were to see our little poems published in that book.
My love for poetry continued into middle school. My seventh grade teacher introduced us to Edgar Allen Poe. I fell in love. She would read us a new poem every week. We would analyze the poem and then try to determine the meaning or reasoning behind the poem.
In 11th, grade of high school, we were required to memorize the Canterbury Tales Prologue. I can not say that made me a better poet. Actually, I do not really understand the benefits of it. Just because I could recite it did not mean I could comprehend it. But regardless, I had to recite it to the class. I did, it wasn't too hard or too nerve wrecking and I can still remember most of it to this day.
Now, as an adult, I do not read much poetry.
Poets I enjoy:
Edgar Ellen Poe
Emily Dickinson
Robery Frost
Walt Whitman
Langston Hughes
E.E. Cummings
Shel Silverstein
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Geoffry Chaucer
Homer
Mary Oliver
I think it's awesome you got to really dive into poetry in the classroom! That doesn't happen often but it seems like whenever people talk about their school poetry unit they always enjoyed it! Wish more teachers realized that!
Thank your for sharing your experience. I really related to the quote "I loved the mystery behind each poem". It had not dawned on me that I also love cracking the code or solving the puzzle of what an author is trying to convey.
Thank you also for sharing how powerful it was for your teacher to publish your class's poetry. This is such an engaging tool and with access to so much new fan-dangled technology these days, it's so much easier to publish;) Sharing to an authentic audience evokes emotion and therefore memory...the goal of teaching and learning, right?
I totally forgot about the Canterbury Tales!! For our unit about these we had to create a video and write our own modern version of each character's (I can't remember what they're actually called but for lack of a better word) tale. This actually made me enjoy reading it because it was a group project and we got to apply it to our lives (well the lives of celebrities). I'm sure the video is still on YouTube lol