Poem: A Novel in Seventh Grade

"A Novel in Seventh Grade"

They turn the book over

in their hands

read the back

flip through the stiff pages

wondering what is inside,

dreading,

silently cursing me

They calculate

on their smart phones

how long it will take to read --

maybe two minutes per page

nearly three hundred pages

six hundred minutes

TEN HOURS, perhaps

They set their jaws tight

and roll their eyes

when they think

I’m not looking

“This is so lame!”

They struggle

like travelers

acclimating to a foreign country

weary of new characters

suspicious of unknown words

through the first thirty pages or so

As days pass

pages turn more quickly and

they stretch out on the classroom floor

sinewy limbs everywhere,

they curl up in corners between bookshelves,

read a chapter over chicken nuggets

in the lunch room

and between equations in math.

Finally they turn the last page

and close the book

then they turn it over in their hands,

wondering,

thinking 
that wasn’t so bad.

Make Every Month Poetry Month with Poetry Journals

I love the idea of National Poetry Month, but unfortunately April is standardized testing month in Florida. More than half the month is spent testing or in testing groups!

So, while I do have some poetry activities planned for the last week of April, I strive to find ways to expose my students to poetry throughout the year. 

I've had great success this year with a Poem of the Week, inspired by Kelly Gallagher's Article of the Week (which I highly recommend).

I give my students a photocopied poem every Thursday, which they glue onto the left-hand side of their poetry journal. They read the poem at least twice, then mark areas of confusion and words and lines that stand out to them. Next, they choose from a variety of prompts to write a half- to full-page reflection on the right-hand side of their poetry journal.

When they are finished, they read their writing to their partner. Sometimes we listen to an audio version of the poem if available. Then we have a whole class discussion about the poem. I use index cards to ensure everyone is participating. This is an idea from Dave Stuart at teachingthecore.com.

While sometimes I will point out certain elements of the poem (Did you notice all of the repetition? Did anyone find personification in this poem?) or give the students some background about the author in the discussion, I do not go into an in-depth analysis of each poem. I let the students guide the discussion.

My goals are simply to expose the students to more poetry, to have them read the poems closely and write about them, and to foster discussion about texts.  It's been amazing how much thoughtful their responses and conversations have become.

Over the course of the year, my students have already read, written about and discussed about two dozen poems above and beyond what is in their textbooks!

I select the poems from a variety of online resources and print anthologies. Sometimes the poems tie in with our current literature study (such as horror or nature writing), but more often I attempt to find poems that I think my students will connect with.

Here is Poetry Response Journal directions and a list of prompts, which my students glue on to the first page of their notebooks.

Here is the complete list of poems my 8th graders have read this year:

"Introduction to Poetry" Billy Collins
"This is Just to Say" William Carlos Williams
"Flying at Night" Ted Kooser
"Street Music" Arnold Adoff (Found in Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades)
"Summertime Sharing" Nikki Grimes (Found in Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades)
"Alone" Edgar Allan Poe
"Annabel Lee" Edgar Allan Poe
"Ghost House" Robert Frost
"Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I (Round about the cauldron go)" William Shakespeare
"Spirits of the Dead" Edgar Allan Poe
"The Great Depression" Gleb Zavlanov
"Litany" Billy Collins (Be sure to check out this video too!)
"Abandoned Farmhouse" Ted Kooser
"The Ugly Quilt" Patricia Wellingham-Jones
"Eating Poetry" Mark Strand
"Workshop" Billy Collins
"From the Shore" Carl Sandburg
"A Poison Tree" William Blake
"Hanging Fire" Audre Lorde
"Teenagers" Pat Mora
"Snow-Flakes" Henry Wadsworth Longellow
"A Certain Young Lady" Washington Irving
"O Captain! My Captain!" Walt Whitman
"My Grandmother is Waiting for Me to Come Home" Gwendolyn Brooks (There are other great poems at this PDF link too.)
"As I Grew Older" Langston Hughes
"Afternoon Delight" Suzanne Adam
"The Apparition" John Donne
"Sleeping in the Forest" Mary Oliver
"The Lake" Edgar Allan Poe