Thursday, October 15, 2009

A Virtue

I'm feeling impatient.

It seems like I'm still not doing a good job giving my students time to write, mostly because the poem and mini-lesson are taking too much time at the front end of class. It's not as though they could sustain more than 15-20 minutes of solid writing anyway, but the transitions continue to be a little rough, and it seems that the bell rings too soon after they've finally settled.

Today was no exception, we were very rushed at the end of each class, although at last I'm beginning to see the groundwork of the last several weeks come together. We finally have the foundation of a common language for talking about free verse poetry that the students can apply both to what we are reading and to their own drafts. They are conversant in line breaks, sensory details, figurative language (simile, metaphor, and personification), the quality of the verbs and nouns, and basic punctuation choices. In addition, they are getting pretty good at discussing what meaning a poem has for them.

OK... I guess we are making some progress.

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