As we near the end of our annual poetry unit, my colleagues and I have noticed that our students know very little about poetry. Where in past years, discussion of simile, metaphor, and personification would be mostly review, this year it seemed to be new material for the majority of kids. Haiku was also new to many, as was Cinquain, Limerick, and other common forms.
It's hardly surprising: the pandemic left educators scrambling to fill essential gaps in our students' skills and knowledge, and I guess poetry and figurative language were triaged out for a few years. Even so, I was a little shocked today.
The lesson was simple: review rhyme, write a 12-line rhyming poem, and label the rhyme scheme. Or it would have been if most of the sixth graders could actually rhyme. I started to get an idea about this gap in their skill set during the warm-up question which was to add one more rhyming line to this couplet:
If you're feeling down and blue
here is something you can do...
Have some tea wrote the first person.
Take a deep breath wrote another.
Try to be cool was a little closer.
You have nothing to lose was also arguably slant.
Chew some gum and have some fun. I could see where they thought that might work.
I gave examples, they made some quick edits, and then we moved on to the lesson. Some were getting it, others not so much. Able to write anything at all, they were composing lines such as this:
I like winter
because it is thinner
the smell of hot chocolate
and roses, not violets
or
My dog is fat
my mom slapped
the bat is flat
I got smacked
or this:
I love my dog.
She is the color of cream.
My dog is kind.
She likes running.
Clearly, the deficits run deep. Maybe if we called it the "science of poetry" it would get a little more attention!
Touche'
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