Teaching Poetry to Kids: How to Make it Fun!
Giving your time to help kids write poetry shows them that reading and writing is relevant to their lives, gives them a voice, and shows them how they can learn from one another through collaborative learning. In this workshop, we’ll draw on an experience I had last summer co-teaching a poetry workshop to elementary schoolers at a community center in Richmond, Virginia to learn what works and what doesn’t and why. We will discuss issues of authority in the classroom, how to reach elementary school students, and how to resist the temptation to “correct” and instead respect students whose first language is different from your own.
details
- when: saturday, april 18th, 2009, from 2:05 pm - 3:35 pm
- to attend: Please see the info page for more information on attending any of the workshops at the 2009 Boston Skillshare.
- facilitated by: Cat Sears
lesson plan
--Introductions
--Case study of the workshop I taught last summer. What worked, what didn't and why?
--How to make a book that students can take with them and the importance of having students make something tangible out of their work
--Authority in the classrom. How can you be respected without being authoritarian?
--Ways to break down the atomized, asocial relationship between teacher and student: collaborative learning and circle writing
--Some circle writing exercises of our own to see how it works.
--Using music to help kids generate poetry
--Issues of language. How do you resist the temptation to revise and instead focus on helping students to generate poetry?
--Discuss issues of language in education—should "Standard" English be the language of the classroom or is there room for Black English and other languages? What are the advantages and disadvantages of teaching in both languages?
--Discuss the importance of having students perform their work, in order to value their voices.
--Talk about opportunities in Boston for teaching (826?) and how to get involved in education without actually becoming a certified teacher and teaching to a test. I hope participants will share their knowledge with this discussion because I’m new to Boston!
facilitator experience
Last summer, I co-taught a week long poetry workshop to elementary school students at the Peter Paul Development Center in Richmond, Virginia, a community center that serves East Richmond. Before that, I was a volunteer teacher’s assistant at a Headstart preschool in South Richmond. I’m currently a fiction writing student in the Master’s program at Emerson College where hopefully next semester, I’ll get to teach freshman composition! As one of the organizers for the Richmond Zine Fest last year, I really value helping people to share their voices, which is why I am interested in teaching creative writing.
intended audience
No experience necessary or prerequisite skills, just an interest in teaching to kids!
other resources suggested by the facilitator
--http://www.poetryteachers.com/. This website has many poems under "Giggle Poetry" that kids like.
--www.shelsilverstein.com: Shel Silverstein has put up some printable poems, games and puzzles on his website.
--If you google search poetry for kids, you come across all sorts of websites with lesson plans and poems.
--The Boston Public Library has a ton of poetry books for kids.