Week of November 9th: Poetry

   This week in class we talked about poetry and took notes on poetry workshop. I learned that many things encompass the process of a poetry workshop. These things include poet talk, poetry read aloud, poetry mini-lesson, poetry projects, poetry centers, and poetry sharing. To further examine poetry, we discussed how poetry is focused on feelings, often combines sounds and words in unique ways, more than likely uses intense imagery, and usually has a deep meaning or message to it.
   There are also many different types of poetry. Free verse is my personal favorite type of poem to write because there are no restraints or guidelines. You can just say what you want the way you want it. There are also other nice forms of poetry as well though, such as limericks, Haikus, list, cinquain, and narrative. The book that we have been reading at home for class, Brown Girl Dreaming, using free verse poetry to create a story.
   My group in class was assigned with the task of finding a limerick poem. We chose Hickory-Dickory-Dock for ours. Since most people know that poem, it was easy to see how it follows the pattern of a limerick.

  We also looked at the poem "Let America Be America Again" and had to figure out elements to add to the poem to emphasize its meaning, and then record our renditions of the excerpt either on video or audio recording. My group split the poems into parts, recited it with varying numbers of people based on the meaning of the poem, and then added an instrumental patriotic song to the background of it. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. At first I did not really want to do it, but afterwards it was really cool to see how it came together and what you can do with poetry. 

   Overall, I can use the information that I learned in class today on poetry to create my poetry responses to Brown Girl Dreaming. I know now the many different forms of poetry that I can use to create it, and how to find my own meaning in the words. I can analyze the poems in the book to look for different elements that make it a strong poem, and then employ those elements in my own poetic responses.