The Forgotten Genre of Children’s Poetry - Sharon Ruth Gill

• Write a short summary of your piece, featuring the 'big idea' or 'take-home message' you gained from reading it (about 100-200 words)

Sharon Gill’s article The Forgotten Genre of Children’s Poetry provides a detailed description of appropriate and beneficial poetic authors and compositions necessary to instructing children through poetry. Sharon’s main concern is that modern poetry is being lost in a previous allusion that children’s poetry is limited to authors such as Shel Silverstein. She goes on to add that although poets such as Silverstein are highly recognized for their craft, their poems often have little appeal to children. “While there are certainly many poems written for adults that are appropriate for children...”(622). Nevertheless, as educators in poetry we shouldn’t be afraid to use poems that may appear to be limited for adult use only. It is important to model to our students poems that use correct formatting, a variety of styles, and that introduce topics and ideas encountered in real, everyday life.

• Discuss whether and how you would use this approach at your grade level, where it could fit within the language arts curriculum in your classroom, and what it offers for enriching writing instruction beyond what you thought about as you completed Task 1 of this module.

Although, Gill’s article did not discuss a direct approach to teaching/integrating poetry, many suggestions were provided as well as insightful resources for future reference. I think poetry is a great form of composition that can be included in the language arts curriculum as a form of expressive writing. As I teach third grade, I have observed the students become increasingly frustrated as the day goes on due to minimal time allotted to share personal stories. Providing the students an opportunity to engage in a free write, centered around the format of poems, students would be able to take an experience and transfer their thoughts/actions to paper in the form of a visual and expressive poem.

• Also identify what you think you need to learn to do as a professional in order to use this approach well with your students.

In order to instruct my students on poetry topics and concepts, I need to first become a “master”, or at least somewhat successful, at composing comprehensive poetic pieces.

• Lastly, how have any of the ideas in this module (writer's workshop, assessment, analysis of student work, jigsaw articles) helped you to think about the types of assessment necessary for informing your unit development? Even if your unit is not focused squarely on writing, what might you need to consider about your students as WRITERS, as you plan for instruction? (To review an example of how writing assessment informs a 3rd grade teacher's instruction more broadly, review pp. 82-3 in Book Club Plus!)

Many of the ideas in this module have helped me to think about the types of assessment necessary for informing my unit development. I have been reintroduced to the idea that the information presented to the students should come from credible and diverse resources. It is important to not just teach children about famous people and events but to provide them with relevant content that they are able to connect to their everyday lives. Additionally, writing instruction allows a teacher to grasp the ways in which their students interpret events that that are writing about. The students strategies and though process are displayed as you are able to follow their flow of comprehensive and cohesive writing based on a previous text, experience, or scenario.