A few weeks ago, I hit that time of year in my sixth grade classroom I usually dread. Poetry. I've never been a big fan of poetry myself. Teaching poetry to sixth graders usually feels to me like trying to make a trip to the dentist sound fun. They don't buy it. So we slog through two weeks of rhyming couplets, dubious metaphors, and allusive symbolism before we all breathe a huge sigh of relief.
This year I wised up. Wrote a grant that got me a class set of Dare to Dream . . . Change the World books. This collection of poems edited by Jill Corcoran features writing by some of today's top KidLit writers and poets. Each spread couples a biography of someone who has made an impact in some way with two poems that relate to that person.
Nicole and I (well, mostly Nicole) had the pleasure of putting together a Teacher's Guide for Jill. We honed in on as many of the Common Core Standards for grades 6 through 8 as we could and then tried to create engaging activities and diverse writing assignments.
Then, I got to teach it.
And the results were . . . in a word . . . magic.
Never before had I had kids asking me, as they came through the door, who the poems would be about for the day. Never before had I had my students making observations about mood and tone and meaning that were unsolicited! Yes, you read that right. We would read a poem, and they would INTERRUPT me to say, "Mrs. Fry, I think the poet is trying to show us that the narrator is angry at the cows because the cows are free and he isn't. That's why he's cussing at them. It makes sense now." Yeah, for real.
And their writing was truly inspiring and inspired. Kids who had struggled all year to put thoughts on paper were suddenly writing with abandon, and finding voices that had seemingly been buried.
One of my favorite days was when we did Nicholas Cobb. Nicole's brilliant lesson starts with kids being introduced to Nicholas Cobb who was a young kid who raised a lot of money for homeless people. We then read the poems on those pages. Next, we examined a large image of a homeless camp under a bridge, listened to sounds of traffic overhead, got under our desks to simulate being under a bridge, and wrote sensory descriptions of what that would feel like. Finally, we turned those descriptions into some wonderful poetry.
The two weeks went way too quickly. I will extend it next year and incorporate ALL of the poems, since they are too rich to skip. And my students will benefit from the standards-based, but interactive curriculum that goes with it.
If you want to check out that curriculum, click here: Dare to Dream Teacher's Guide.
