This last term my syndicate is moving into studying poetry. To be honest I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the unit. Because my class is off to camp this coming week , I decided to start off with limerick writing.
What was surprising was how quickly the students were so enthusiastic about the task. As I scanned the room during conferences, I could overhear each others work and giving feedback on their work. The students loved rhyming and trying to figure out the rhythm of this type of poetry.
Despite my dislike of the genre I realised that poetry provides an outlet for students to play with our language. So often we focus on substance and form, surface features versus deep features. Poetry lets students experiment with sounds, intonation in their writing. They get to stop and select their words as if it were a new sneaker.
What has been awesome is that my students’ enthusiasm has rubbed off on me and in feeling a lot more energised about the unit.
Teaching the Teacher 
Leave a Reply