2022 Post #29 -- Discover Something New

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Believe it or not, the least-used shelf in my classroom library is the poetry shelf.  I share a poem every day of the school year with my students, and most find it to be an enjoyable routine.  But when it comes time to make a choice for independent reading, poetry collections and anthologies are never their first choice. (Novels-in-verse, however, are a different story; they tend to fly off their shelf!)

One day during National Poetry Month, I pull the books from that shelf and scatter them across the desks for the students arrive.  Click the link in the tweet below to see a video of what this looks like!

Today for #PoemADay I pulled books 📚 from the poetry section of my classroom. We defined “poetry collection” vs “poetry anthology.” Read for a few minutes. Find a poem that’s worth sharing aloud w a friend in the class. pic.twitter.com/VirGqHobZ8

— Brett Vogelsinger (@theVogelman) April 6, 2022

 Each student has at least two poetry books on their desk. On the board I have two definitions:

• Poetry anthology: a book of poems by various poets around a theme
• Poetry collection: a book of poems written by the same poet

"Check the books on your desk," I say. "Can you tell which type of books you have right now?"

I continue, "Pick one of these books, and let's take five minutes of silent reading.  If the first one doesn't grab your attention at all, you have a second book available too. In that short time, find a poem or part of a poem that you'd like to share aloud. First we'll share with a seat partner, then a second time with a different person of your choice."

By the time our Poem of the Day routine is complete on this day, the students have read/heard a minimum of three poems and experienced the joy of choice reading, all in a short span of time at the start of class. The room is full of discovery. Maybe they will even sign out one of the books from that unfrequented poetry shelf in my classroom library!

If you do not have a poetry section in your classroom library, try this activity with the help of your school librarian and a squeaky cart that brings the book to your room.  Some teachers call this sort of thing a book tasting and fill the room with red-checkered tablecloths to add the ambiance. 

Since no particular link to a poem is featured in this post, below are links to five poetry books I think would make a good start to a classroom poetry library for middle or high school. Dust regularly. Read daily. 

Further Reading: 

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.  His new book for teachers, Poetry Pauses, will be available from Corwin Press just in time for National Poetry Month 2023.  

2022 Post #21 -- What Hushes Us

by Brett Vogelsinger

Hayden Saunier's poem "I Need to Live Near a Creek" is so short and lovely and calming, and students enjoy writing their own variations of it.  The poems helps me teach two things: assonance and self-knowledge. 

First, we read the poem twice and I ask students, "What sound do you hear repeated here several times?" Naturally, they pick out the rhyming words, "lush," "rush," and "hushes."  I have them next identify what is the vowel sound in all those rhymes.  "OK, here's something really cool.  That "u" sound is hidden four other places in this poem. Can you find it?"

the

because

of

up

"And it just gets cooler - that vowel sound creates a little bit of a lullaby sound in the poem doesn't it, especially when you put it with the "s" and "sh" sounds sometimes.  And that sound effect matches the whole point of the poem -- knowing what brings you calm, what hushes you up inside."  

Of course teenagers love learning that these repeated vowel sounds have a fun name: assonance. 

This year, we read this poem days after the Alex Dimitrov poem, "Love," which I wrote about two days ago on this blog.  So this time I had them create a poem that begins with the words "I need" and told them they could use them once like Saunier or repeatedly like Dimitrov.  

After inviting a few quick share, I tell them one last gem from those two words.  When resolving conflict, "I need" statements are generally productive, so much better than telling someone "you should."  So these words not only help you know what brings you calm, but help others know it as well. 

Further Reading: 

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2022 Post #19 -- What Do You Love?

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Alex Dimitrov's poem "Love" is pages long in The Best American Poetry 2021 anthology, but every stanza starts with the same two words:  "I love."  Some of these sentences are just three words long, while others spill into multiple lines of poetry.  

The poem was composed on Twitter, one little bit at a time, but read as a single piece, it has the momentum of a perfect piece of anaphora and a flow of ideas that feels a bit like an accordion to me, sometimes expanding on an idea, then contracting to a completely different one with the next "I love." 

To begin our poem of the day routine, I walk around the room showing my students the length of this poem, reminding them poems don't have to be short.  They can keep them rolling along for pages in their notebooks if they would like.  

Then I tell them, "I'm going to read the first twelve lines aloud, without you seeing this poem, and when I stop, just keep the ball rolling.  Start listing the things you love.  Ride the wave of this parallel structure Alex Dimitrov creates by starting line after line, stanza after stanza, with the same two words." 

The next moments in class are beautiful, silent but for the scratching of pencils in notebooks, and students never seem to finish before I stop them.  Within minutes, some students have even filled an entire page with a poem. 

Here is an example of what my student, Brooke, created:

This exercise is a golden opportunity to succinctly teach the power of parallel structure or anaphora because students have already built their own example of it, riding the wave of Dimitrov's original.  

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.