How Can We Teach Poetry More Effectively?

Poetry plays a key role in literacy learning, but the subject is still easily misunderstood. Teachers must understand the purpose of poetry, why and how we teach it.

Poetry requires intentional focus, not just an add-on or a four week unit. Making poetry a part of your weekly or fortnightly routine (K-6) clearly shows students how much you value it. It enables them to develop momentum in their poetry learning and to build their understanding of poetry over time.

Carve out a Poetry Workshop (once a week/fortnight):

• Poet Talk
• Poetry Read Aloud within the Mini Lesson
• Poetry Reading, Writing, Conferring
• Poetry Sharing

Tantalising Texts - We need to build a storehouse of tantalising poems to bring to our students. We read and collect;  anthologies, singular treasures heard, quoted, found. Teachific has built an anthology of poems K-2, 3-6.

Together - Read Aloud poems, develop a reservoir of class favourites, reread, read together, enjoy together, wonder, explore and notice together. Create a culture of poetry within the class - together.

Transformative Teaching - Mini Lessons you can bring to your students through Shared Reading and Shared Writing:

• Enjoying and responding to the craft of poetry
• Reading poems
• Reading like a poet
• Performing poems
• Collecting poems
• Writing poetry
• Forms of poetry

True Tasks and Time - For the bulk of a poetry workshop, students are:

• K-6 Reading, rereading and responding to poems from anthologies, picture books, their own poetry collections
• Reading like a writer and collecting ideas in their writer’s notebook
• Drafting, revising and editing their poems
• Creating art to accompany their poems
• Illustrating poems they have heard or read
• Working with their anthologies (collected poems)
• Conferring with the teacher

Transformative Tracking - Publications, conferring, collections, observations after mini lessons, student reflections - 'what I was trying to achieve as a poet'.

Thinker's Talking - Sharing their poetry, students doing the poet's talk, responding to what they recognise fellow poets have achieved, used, and how it has made them feel.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

TEACHIFIC 

• Teachific anthology of poems K-2 https://www.teachific.com.au/find?page=1&search_type=standard&category_group=20&years[]=1&years[]=2&years[]=3&cats[]=163&cats[]=160&cats[]=199&cats[]=148&cats[]=198
• Teachific anthology of poems 3-6 https://www.teachific.com.au/find?page=1&search_type=standard&category_group=20&years[]=4&years[]=5&years[]=6&years[]=7&cats[]=163&cats[]=160&cats[]=199&cats[]=148&cats[]=198
• Teachific anthology of poems 5-8 https://www.teachific.com.au/find?page=1&search_type=standard&category_group=20&years[]=6&years[]=7&years[]=8&years[]=10&cats[]=163&cats[]=160&cats[]=199&cats[]=148&cats[]=198
• Teachific ‘Poetry Mini Lesson List’  K-2
• Teachific ‘Poetry Mini Lesson List’  3-6
• The Magpies, by Denis Glover https://www.teachific.com.au/view/1917/poem-the-magpies-denis-glover--yrs-5

BOOKTOPIA

• Poetry anthologies for children
• The Man From Snowy River by A. B. Paterson https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/LPPdN0
• The House at Pooh Corner by A.A.Milne https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/a1OjGZ
• Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/BXnOdL
• Guiding Readers and Writers Yrs 3-6, by Fountas and Pinnell https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/DVyOrn
• Continuum of Literacy Learning by Fountas and Pinnell https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/kjO9XN
• Dino Danger by Mortimer Keene https://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/AoPn6R

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The Teacher’s Tool Kit For Literacy is the free podcast for motivated teachers and school leaders who want the latest tips, tricks and tools to inspire their students and school community in literacy learning. 

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