ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Needs Assessment/Rational

Junior High students often have little or no appreciation of the poetry genre. They find it boring, meaningless and incomprehensible. They have great difficulty reading and understanding the various literary devices which a poet uses to create this type of literature. Their reading strategies for constructing meaning from the poetry text are ineffective, and so they are unable to comprehend the poet’s point. Also a lot of sound devices are found in poetry that are used to create a mood, theme, or meaning. Without a more thorough knowledge and understanding of these devices, students do not pick out the more subtle nuances of the poetry. By writing their own poetry, students gain an understanding and appreciation of the poetry genre. They will gain experience writing for their intended audience. Using the literary devices of poetry in their writing will bring about an understanding of the vocabulary. In reviewing the ND State Standards for English and Language Arts, we came to the conclusion that the reading benchmarks which reflected this deficiency are from Standard 2. The writing benchmarks from standard 3 would be enhanced by engaging students in poetry writing and would be met through their publication and use of computer technology. Students finding and sharing poetry that spoke to them would meet standard 1. Our varied presentations will meet standard 5 and standard 6.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: We want our students to be able to find and access a variety of information pertaining to poetry on the web and read poetry using a variety of strategies to comprehend it. We want students to write their own poetry that is meaningful to them and develop ways to share it effectively to a variety of audiences. We want students to develop an appreciation for the poetry genre. Goal(s): Students will access poetry through a variety of sources and employ various strategies to read, understand, and choose poetry that appeals to them. Students will compose their own poetry and use a variety of media to present and publish their personal poetry.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: 1. Why does poetry confuse, yet fascinate, its readers? 2. How can you relate to your own life what the poet is trying to say in his poem? 3. How does the sound and the rhythm of the poetry contribute to the overall effect of the work? 4. How will you choose words to bring about the mood or feeling you want to create in your poem? Objectives: Given various books containing poetry and internet access, students will choose and read a poem that is meaningful to them, share the poem, and explain its meaning to a group using one of the sound devices. Given selected poems, students will apply strategies for reading and comprehending poetry in order to visualize, connect and respond to the poet’s message, explaining 4 lines or a verse from a poem. Given various literary sources, including the internet, students will choose 5-10 poems that illustrate the many sound and language devices used to create poetry and incorporate them into a booklet to be shared with others. Students will compose 5-10 poems that will be used for publication in their booklets and presented by various media, such as school website, school and/or community newspaper, and video recording.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding? A performance-based rubric will be developed by students with teacher guidance and used to evaluate their poetry presentations, poetry booklets, publications, and self-reflection journals. Students will be assessed with quizzes on terms and reading strategies applied to poetry. Students will be given a final test that includes examples of poetry and asked to pick out various literary devices within the poems to extract meaning. What academic prompts e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding?  Students will be asked to explain the meaning of various poems. Students will be asked to identify sound and language devices used in selected poems. What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding? Students will be composing and compiling poems for a booklet to be shared with others. Students will be using various media to present their poetry to an audience. What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect? Along with the finished products of the poetry booklet and publications, students will use their journals to record something new they learned about poetry from class discussions or group sharing activities. These will be collected and scored on the rubric.

Instructional Strategies

The poetry unit is project-based and inquiry-based. Project-based and inquiry-based activities will involve students actively in the reading, writing, and publishing process. They will use technology to locate and select poetry. They will apply reading skills to understand and identify various constructions and infer, imagine, and draw conclusions from their reading to discuss and present to others. Then, synthesizing these ideas, they will create poetry of their own to translate their feelings to others. The final products will be media products that illustrate their own understanding of the poetry genre and are personally designed reflections of their own reactions to it. I teach an eighth grade English class of 16 students. Of this number, 5 students are special needs and 4 others receive Title I services. These students are at risk of being unable to read for different purposes and apply their skills to interpret various types of literature. They also have difficulties in the area of writing and struggle to effectively communicate both verbally and on paper. Trudy Artz is the Special Needs instructor in our school. We communicate about the needs of the students on a daily basis. We already have collaborated on several projects which we have adapted to the needs of special learners. We will concurrently teach this unit with activities adapted and combined in such a way that we will enhance the learning of all students . We each will be incorporating 6 different learning activities. Assignment 2 and assignment 5 will reflect our individual activities and standards. I will be teaching the content area of the unit with classroom instruction on the terminology, reading strategies, instruction on interpreting sound and language devices, various forms of poetry and the writing skills. Together Trudy and I will be carrying out the student activities with her focusing on assisting the students with special needs.