POETRY MUSEUM
For the month of April (poetry month), our fifth graders have been working on studying, experiencing, and writing their own “good” poetry. We say “good” because there is so much poetry out there in the world, but much of it is “cute.” Authors force their meaning, force their rhymes, write poetry about subjects they don’t know much about or feel that strongly about, etc. They don’t think carefully enough about what they want to say or how to say it. We wanted to make sure that when it came time for us to write our own original poems, they were going to be good, not cute!
As so we started off our unit by asking the questions: What is good poetry? What makes a poem “good”? And we began answering this by experiencing many different kinds of poetry: from classics by authors like Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, and Claude McKay to more modern poets like Sylvia Plath, Price Ea, and Billy Collins. We even looked at award-winning poetry from students of all ages at the national level. And after doing this, we began to look for the traits that all these “good” poems shared.
As we found commonalities amongst good poetry, we came up with the following criteria that all good poetry seems to have:
Good poetry is honest/vulnerable (the author/speaker/writer truly cares about the subject of their poem and opens up their heart, mind, and soul for all to read).
Good poetry has something important/meaningful, interesting, and/or thought-provoking to say.
Good poetry contains purposeful, vivid, emotive language choices to convey their honest and vulnerable thoughts and ideas (usually containing imagery).
Good poetry is complex and thoughtful–it often contains shifts in ideas and/or tone to explore multiple aspects of varying ideas.
And so this became our task: we set off to write our own good poetry. And my goodness… these fifth graders succeeded!! Not only did they write some thoughtful, honest, vulnerable poems… but they even analyzed their own work, proving that their original poems met the criteria for a “good” poem.
Here is a link to their wonderful works or art. We sincerely hope you enjoy and that their words stay with you and give you an experience you won’t soon forget!