Poetry Book Recommendations

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Poetry has always been one of my most favorite things to write and read. I love finding such deep meaning through figurative language used in poetry. I wanted to share some novels that our students are going to be using in book clubs and how they take apart poems and discover the meaning/message through discussion. Here are some of our favorites for 2017: 

The first thing we have covered with our students is the GIST of the poem. The who, what, when, where, how, and why of the poem. Depending on the style of the poem, also using the traditional SWBST of summary for the poem. 

Next, we have the students identify the theme or the message the author is trying to tell us or portray in their writing. For some small poems it's a quick discussion, but for the novels above some themes/messages may be interwoven throughout the text. 

Then, we have the students make personal connections, personal/world/text(movie/show). 

Finally, we had them pair up for Think, Pair, Share and discuss their final thoughts. 

We created a quick document just to have them write down their thoughts as we projected a few different poems on the board. 

This was the poem we projected and had the students jot down the gist, message, connections, and final thoughts. Then we shared out. 

These are examples from my friend, Deidra, her classroom. Her kids did a poem that was a young girl talking about being physically abused from her mom. Super deep, but it was something the kids held on to and were able to have a deep conversation over.