Poetry Unit

Poetry is among another category in school that wasn't always my favorite thing. I never had the most confidence in poetry, in my head I wasn't good at it. I have learned that that is entirely not true. Throughout this unit I have been able to see that anyone can do poetry. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme. Poetry can be anything you want it to be. It was fun to come up with prompts and have other groups complete your prompt. That was a fun aspect as well. Not only was I able to create a prompt for another group to try out but I was able to get feedback as to how well it worked and what could work better. I am going to be in my own classroom one day and I am going to come to my poetry unit and I am going to remember back to this class and how I am capable of giving my students the opportunity to engulf their creative minds in the world of poetry.

Books I want to remember:

Love That Dog

Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry

Links:

Poetry Box Rules, from PBS NewsHour

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june00/poetryboxrules.html

Poetry Writing Practice

http://home.att.net/~teaching/langarts/poetry.pdf

Elements of Poetry

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/elements.html

Riddle Poem Features

http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson169/TermsHandout.pdf

Forms of Poetry for Children

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/poeform.htm

Lesson Plans for Language Arts

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons

Shakespeare Unit

Overall this Unit was different then any other I have experienced in the past with Shakespeare. This is usually an area that makes me cringe. I have always had such a hard time grasping what the heck he is saying. It is always so over my head, which leaves it even harder to come together as a group in previous classes and have to talk about what I had read. With this unit I was able to see that Shakespeare doesn't have to make me cringe. I was able to take Shakespeare and make it enjoyable for myself. Not only was it more enjoyable but I was able to understand it. The group presentations of our take on A Midsummer's Night Dream was the most successful part of the unit in my opinion. It helped me to look at it in a more relating sense, I was able to see it in todays terms, with how it would seem if it was taking place in my life right now. That helped me to see that I could be confident in having Shakespeare in my classroom. With the Hobart Shakespeareans I found that it was another great way to see that you can put your students up for any challenge as long as you help them in believing that they can do it. Seeing that fifth grade class reading some of the novels that they were and seeing them act and read the Shakespeare that they had was amazing to see. If fifth graders can do it, I most definitely can.

Links I want to remember:

http://www.rsc.org.uk/exploringshakespeare/

http://www.pathguy.com/mnd.htm

http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/maune/ShakespearePages/ReadingTips.html

http://www.pbs.org/pov/hobart/

http://www.fireflybooks.com/Shakespeare.html

http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/carrick/index.html