We Need Poetry in Our Classrooms

/ lynnedorfman

My Kind of Town  Milenium Park (1)

Chicago is…

Filled with things to do,

An exciting, busy place.

Coming to Chicago?

You’ve made a great choice!

You could stay forever,

Or just for a weekend.

But you’ll want to start with

“The Bean.”

Because if you’ve never been to Chicago,

Or if you’ve been here before,

You’ll visit “The Bean.”

What else can you see?

Millenium Park,

The Navy Pier,

Shedd Aquarium,

Art Institute of Chicago,

The Field Museum,

Skydeck Chicago,

360 Chicago,

Lincoln Park Zoo,

Second City Comedy Club,

Museum of Science and Industry,

Palmer House Hilton lobby.

My kind of town….

 Poetry Month is Coming in April!  Are you ready for it?  Here is a rationale for using poetry in your classroom all year long!

  • Children love the sound of language.
  • Poetry is a genre that has been a part of children’s lives since birth.
  • It can help us see differently, understand ourselves and others, and validate our human experience.
  • Poetry easily finds a home in all areas of the curriculum.
  • It is the great equalizer – a genre especially suited to the struggling or unmotivated reader/writer.
  • Poetry enhances thinking skills and promotes personal connections.
  • Reading poems aloud captures the ear, imagination, and souls of the listeners.
  • The playfulness of language and the ability of words to hold us captive with their intensity, beauty, and genius are particularly apparent in poetry.
  • A poet helps us see things in new ways.
  • Poetry helps to broaden children’s experiences.
  • Poetry can be the voice to claim and name the events we live through.
  • Poetry turns the ordinary into extraordinary.
  • Poetry validates our feelings and helps us make sense of the events of our lives.
  • It gives us ways to gain new insights on old problems.
  • Poetry grants us a place of beauty.
  • Carefully selected poetry has the power to engage readers’ minds, and to elicit sensory reactions, passions, and intense emotions.

I am participating in #SOL17. Thanks to the twowritingteachers

slice-of-life2

blog team for creating this wonderful writing community. 

13 thoughts on “We Need Poetry in Our Classrooms”

  1. Poetry taps in to our love of language and sounds. The challenge for me is to resist comparisons to “real” poets. I suspect that may be true for many of us.

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  2. I really love poetry and every year around this time I promise myself that next year I will do poetry all year long in my classroom. I just can’t seem to think of ways to do it regularly. Next year I will be teaching first or second grade (the suspense is killing me!); do you have suggestions for incorporating poetry regularly for younger grades?

    Also, I haven’t been to Chicago yet, and your post really makes me want to visit! How is it in the month of August?

    -Amanda at https://teachingwanderlust.com

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  4. Oh, I love your poem. I’ve only been to Chicago once, thirty plus years ago, but I still have wonderful memories of that visit. I had never heard of The Bean until I was introduced to it this week by AKR’s videos. I have loved her books, but did not know about The Beckoning of Lovely until Tara introduced me to it. Love your rationale for sharing poetry and my two favorites:
    “Poetry turns the ordinary into extraordinary…
    Poetry grants us a place of beauty.”

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  6. Now there’s an idea for everyone this month. Create a list poem of things to do and see in your town. I think poetry got a bad reputation because of all the rules people think apply to it and always looking for hidden/deeper meaning. At least that was true in my classes when I was a student. Valerie Worth’s poems changed my thinking of poetry.

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