Beth Kovalcik and Janine L. Certo

The Poetry Café is Open: Teaching Literary Devices of Sound in Poetry Writing

Authors: Beth Kovalcik, Janine L. Certo

This article was about mini poetry lessons done in a series of writers’ workshops where students were given poetry journals to keep the poems they wrote during the lessons. Teachers team taught the mini-lessons, wrote for 5 minutes with the students, then split up and conferenced with the students for the next 15 minutes. They always ended with a 10-minute sharing session for the students to read their poems and share writing strategies.

Mini-lesson 1 coached the use of rhyme in poetry by using the poem “Red, Where did you get that red?” and asking students to also create a color poem. They did this because the words, green, blue, red, and yellow all have a lot of words that rhyme with them so they set it up for students to be successful.

Mini-lesson 2 introduced repetition and alliteration. The teachers began by reading poems to the students that had repetition and alliteration and asked them to identify what they heard and then explained that alliteration means two or more words of syllables near each other with the same beginning consonants.

Mini-lesson 3 introduced onomatopoeia. They had students perform actions such as stomping their feet, slamming their books, etc. and then asked other students to identify the sounds they heard- stomp, slam, etc. Then they explained that ontomatopoeia describes a word that sounds like the action. Students were given the challenge to go back to their poetry journals and find a place where it would be appropriate to use ontomatopoeia or they could draft a new poem.

Mini-lesson 4 was collaborative poetry. A web was drawn on the board with the words “Our class is like…” written in the middle. Students were asked to contribute their ideas to this web and the teachers recorded them. Then students were then given the suggestion to group together the like ideas and make each idea a different stanza of their poem. As a class they wrote a poem using the ideas on the board and the poem was used as an informal assessment of what the students had learned throughout the mini-lessons.

To assist students who need extra help this aritcle talked about an example that they did with one student where one of the teachers would ask him questions about his topic and write a line for each of his answers and these lines would form his poem. He was then given time to read through the poem with the teacher and change anything that he wanted and then copy it to a final draft to give him a sense of ownership.

After all of the mini-lessons the students invited family and friends to come to their poetry café that was set up just like a real café.

Since this was done with a 2^nd grade classroom and I have 5^th grade I would have to adapt this approach for my students, but I think it would be possible. My students recently wrote personification poems and they really enjoyed sharing them so I think they would enjoy the café sharing idea. I think in 5^th grade I would extend it to more than just poetry readings. I would love to have a café where the students can share any of their writing pieces from the year. I think it would be a great end of the year activity for my students rather than after four mini lessons. However, I think the café idea is wonderful because it gives students a chance to practice reading in front of other people and gain confidence in their writing. It also is great for the parents to see their students growing as learnings. I think the café can be done for any grade level, the material that they share would just be different. I would like to try to follow the format that the 2^nd grade teachers used of teaching a writing topic, modeling it with the students, allowing them to write a sample using the writing element they were just taught while conferencing, and then allowing the students to share their writing with the class. I think this could certainly fit in during my writing time of the day. It wouldn’t have to be something I do daily, but everytime I introduce a new writing element/concentration I could set the lesson up like these teachers did. I think by having the students share their work at the end of the first day they worked on a new element will help them to learn from each other and also give them confidence in what they learned that day. The article also said that sometimes when the students share their poetry, students in the class would be asked to give the reader two positive comments and one suggestion for improvement. Once again this is a great confidence builder and a wonderful way to learn from their peers as well. I also like the conferencing because I think it really helps the teacher to see where the studnets are at in their work, informally assessing right when they begin the new writing element. It also makes the students realize that the teacher cares about their writing and wants to help them succeed. I would definitely love to try this approach and see how it goes in my classroom. I think the students would like to try something new and exciting!

As a professional, in order to implement this approach with my students, I would certainly have to work on time management. Since my students are older and it wouldn’t always be poetry the time that I allow for students to write and share would differ from the second grade class, but I also would need to be sure that I allow the appropriate amount of time for my students to complete a writing so that they feel comfortable sharing it. I may have to allow two days of writing sometimes before we do the sharing. I also think that as a professional I need to learn how to effectively conference with students about their writing so that I am helping them to further their learning process and improve their writing. At the same time I want to also build their confidence and not scare them away from writing. Also, each student is different so I would need to learn how to change my conference style based on the student. I think learning how to effectively conference will be very important for me this year. My CT has told me that she would like to start conferencing with our students on some of their writings soon so I’m exciting to observe her and begin to take part in it myself as well!

Watching the 5^th grade video on writer’s workshop made me realize that informal assessment really can happen all the time during writing. I’ve always thought of writing as being assessed based on the final product. I now realize that assessing writing goes way beyond assessing the final product. If we don’t’ assess the students throughout their writing process we wont’ know where they are confused and where they need the help. I loved that the teacher (Mr. White) in the video carried around a binder where he could jot down quick notes while talking to his students. He could then go back to these later and see where all of his students need to improve and also the strengths that they have. From both the readings and watching the video I realized how important it is to not only understand the students’ weaknesses, but also their strengths. By knowing their strengths, as a teacher I can have a better understanding of where they can grow in their writing process and how to challenge them. As teachers we never want to overlook the good in our students! Since I am doing a genre unit for my guided lead teach I think there will be many ways for me to incorporate writers workshop (it has not been done in my class yet). I also plan to make some sort of binder or list of the students so that I can make notes of what I observe as I walk around and as I talk with the students just like Mr. White did in the video. I think taking quick notes while talking with the students is helpful because then you are able to write down exactly what is happening verses trying to remember late. The main thing I would like to focus on for my unit is looking at all steps of the students writing process and finding goals for individual students through student-teacher conferences. I think really digging into the students writing both with them and on my own is the best way to assess their writing skills and I look forward to trying it!