Poetry-Because Robin Williams Said It Was Great

Poetry. The “Bane” of every freshman’s existence. No, really, the freshman despise poetry just as much as Batman despises Bane, just as much as Voldemort despises Harry, and almost as much as I despise dabbing and bottle flipping as a teacher. Thank God those fads were short lived!

Of course I saw this as a challenge: how to make poetry interesting. Que the inspirational “Rocky” music, past lessons, and of course, Pinterest aka a teacher’s best friend. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t listening to the “Rocky” theme song, but I was listening to music, which got me thinking. All of a sudden, I stumbled upon an old lesson I had saved that paired figurative language with popular song lyrics. BOOM! That was how I was going to make poetry interesting: turn Shakespeare, Poe, and Angelou into Bieber, Jovi, and Swift! You literary people out there, do not look down on me for comparing Angelou to T-Swift...those lessons were completely separate!

We began our learning about the main figurative language terms. Then, we moved on to being introduced to some very famous poets that were mentioned previously. We went through interpreting the language and what the figurative terms added to the poems we read.

Now that you have fallen asleep listening to the basics of what we did...WAKE UP! This is where it got good and the real education began! With the notion of every song is a poem grilled and discussed into the brains of my freshman classes, we came to realization that yes, Justin Beiber is in fact a poet and could almost grouped with Poe… We had a moment of silence but came back and moved on to bigger and better education.

Just a side note, I am a teacher who absolutely detests big, comprehensive tests. I would rather have my kids participate in discussions, create, write, and imagine and not just regurgitate information back to me. So, we spent four whole days listening to songs that had the same meaning, imagery, or feeling toward a subject as a poem. Some of the song and poem pairings were:  

My Best Days (Danny Gokey)-The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)

Arlington (Trace Adkins)-In Flander’s Field (John McCrae)

Win (Brian McKnight)-Still I Rise (Maya Angelou)

**There was an abounding list of songs and poems I wanted to pair; however, we were in a time crunch!

After we watched a music video and interpreted it, we read the poem pairing and interpreted that as well. The kids then took lines from the poem and the songs and described in two paragraphs how they were connected. They also had to identify and figurative language as well. The next day, we tackled a different song and poem pairing. At the very end of that week, we had a contest to where I split them up into groups, and they had to rely on their team to stay alive. Okay maybe a little extreme there, but in order to have bragging rights...and candy. I located a PowerPoint through a google search of figurative language and song lyrics that was already put together. I wish I knew who put it together to give them credit, because it was genius! This PowerPoint acted as a test in a sort of way. The slides were set up to show song lyrics of a variety of different songs. Based on the song lyrics, the kids had to decipher what the figurative language was, the title of the song, and the artist. Now, I did have to change some of the songs mainly to throw some newer songs and, of course, some oldies...meaning hits of the 2000s.

In the end, the kids loved this activity mainly because they are competitive little/big people. In the educator’s perspective, it gave the kids something different, and it allowed them to connect poetry to real life and something they hear everyday that may just influence their lives...music.

Now on to the best part of the poetry unit. Every year I require all students in my freshman English classes to send in an original poem to poeticpower.com. I have been familiar with this company since I was in 4th grade...16 years...excuse me while I get the “old” chills. Done. My teacher, Mrs. Van Cleve asked us to send in a poem that had to revolve around patriotism as it was right after 9/11. A bunch of us got published, and I still remember receiving the book with my name in it along with the pride I felt. This again happened my senior year of high school and as a first year teacher, I introduced it as a teacher to my students. The first year, 19 students were asked to be published. Last year, 24 students were asked to be published. This year, 44 students were asked to publish their work. Thirty-nine of this year’s students gave permission and will forever have their name printed in hundreds of copies of poetry anthologies along with their classmates and friends. Also, in my three years of carrying on this tradition, I just received word today, March 21st, that one of my students, one that I have built an amazing mentorship with, who has been an amazing writer and who has strived to make her writing better, is a Top Ten Winner out of the 10th-12th grade category. She has been published the past three years and the excitement is real to reveal the news to her tomorrow of the accomplishment she has made. Not only is she a Top Ten Winner, but also she gets $25! Hey, on Amazon, that can buy a muy amount of books...or half of an inflatable T-Rex costume :).

Through all the pain and suffering of poetry that my students and I went through, getting that email of 44 students being asked to be published, seeing the excitement on their faces, working with a company that inspired me early in my years, and the a-ha moment on their faces when we listened to Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic”, has been the highlight of my year! I only hope next year, my new school will allow me to continue this tradition and to inspire more young writers.

Peace out, peoplescouts! Thank you for reading and stay tuned for the next blog post about how we never took a big, comprehensive test over Romeo and Juliet and instead ate food the whole hour :).