For you and for your students!
ETAI Spring Conference March 28, 2012
Leah Doryoseph

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” quote by Plutarch

The Seven Key Components
1. Pre-Reading Activity
2. Basic Understanding
3. Analysis and Interpretation
4. Bridging Text and Context
5. Post-Reading Activity
6. Reflection
7. Summative Assessment

Pre-Reading (getting in the mood)
1. What is poetry?
2. Don’t judge a book by its cover
3. Choices
4. Self-worth
5. Discrimination
6. Immigrants and their children
7. Legacy

What is Poetry?
Reading poetry is like eating hot peppers, it sets my mouth on fire.
• Does this poet like reading poetry or not?
• How can you tell?

Studying poetry is like ______
A. Your/their turn. 5 minutes
• Each one must write something!
• Read them out loud
• Do they like to study poetry? Why? Why not?
B. What do they expect next?
• Tell them you are going to read a poem about studying poetry by Billy Collins.
• Do they think he likes it or not?
• Read the poem or play a video of it being performed.

Nuts and Bolts
• At some point they need the vocabulary to understand the poem.
• Ask the basic understanding questions from the book.
• Ask if they think we will study the poem the way Collins wants us to or not.
– Why do they think that?
• Which thinking skill did they use to answer?

How much time do we have left?

Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.
http://youtu.be/jimfmwzd6WI

The Seven Skills
• comparing and contrasting
• distinguishing different perspectives
• explaining cause and effect
• explaining patterns
• inferring (reading between the lines)
• problem solving

What patterns do you see?
box, clocks, fox, rocks, ox, ____, ___

Problem Solving
• Mr. Kelada stood at a crossroad and needed to make a decision.
• He looked into Mrs. Ramsey’s future as far as he could.
• Then chose to sacrifice his own reputation instead.

Uncovering Motives
• Why do people do the things they do?
• Why did Mr. K say the pearls were fake?
• Why did Mr. R bet?
• Why was Mrs. R scared?
How does this help us?

… and they lived happily ever after.
THE END