After reading the first chapter in Christensen book and the blog post by Macaluso, I noticed a theme between them that I not only loved, but find very important today.
Macaluso talks about how she went went to the store and saw the world a new way when she wrote the poem about the old woman and her husband. Until that time she never thought of the supermarket in a way that may seem scary, but meeting this old woman who fears her husband may forget her there changed her view point. Christensen also mentioned this when she had her students write poems about who raised them. When the students shared their ideas and their poems, they began to see each other differently and realized that some of them had more in common than they thought. This also opened up for more opportunities to have students grow and be more accepting of each other.
When the students were told to think about who raised them, the learned to think outside the box, reflect on their lives, and realize that there are more influences on them then just people. One student wrote that music raised them. They saw the world from a new perspective and realized that they are so surrounded by music at all times, the music started to shape them as a person. This is also done when one student wrote about how they were raised by video games and how they changed their personality.
When I write poetry I notice I begin to look at many things in a new way. I am writing a poem for my RAFT project and found I was trying to look at the common core standards from the perspective of students of different races, classes, and interests levels. I tried to imagine how the standards would apply to a student wanting to be a mechanic, a profession where essay writing may not be needed as often. I never thought of it that way until I chose to write a poem on the topic, rather I thought of the standards in a singular way that is expected.
On a random note, I love how both writers gave examples of poems on their topics. Macaluso wrote such a good poem but it was also so sad. I also liked seeing the work by different students in Christensen's class. I think writing poems on who raised you would be an amazing lesson and project to do one day with students.
I also found the same theme of the new outlook on life that poetry brings! Seeing who raised you can definitely change the way you view your peers. Having a student who doesn't have a parent to guide them through life, who finds more comfort and guidance in music stands out to me a lot. A student may find this cool, and other students will find compassion for this student who can see that there is more than just an interest for music.
ReplyDeleteI also loved reading the poems in Christensen's book! I remember getting examples of poetry shown to me in high school, I'd like to keep these in mind to have copied and shown to my students to get them started :-)
I think its so important for students to share their stories with one another. As Christensen noted, this is what creates a community in the classroom. I also liked how in the assigned to write about who raised the students, Christensen noted how there was a lot of freedom in the assignment. Of course, in nontraditional families today not everyone was raised by mom and dad, so the ability the students had to take their writing in whatever direction is important.
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