Teaching with Poetry Tools
These learner based tools are flexible, extensible and focused on process
as opposed to product. The poetry tools allow student writers to actively
and mindfully work through lessons in metaphor, syntax, word choice, and
parts of speech.
Note: You will need the Flash 5 plug-in to view these
tools.Download it by following this link to the Macromedia free Download
page.
"A poem is a small or large machine made
with words." -- William Carlos Williams
Metaphor Poetry:
Using the metaphors "Spring is...," "Freedom is...," and
"Diversity is...,"this tool allows students to explore how
language works to convey meaning while closely examining
the intracacies of metaphor. Appropriate for grades k-12.
Hope Is Poetry:
Using Dickinson's
poem "Hope is..." as a model, this tool allows student writers to insert their own
text to futher explore language structures, parts of
speech, and what makes a text "poetic." Appropriate for
grades 4-12.
Found Poetry:
Found poems are build from lines of existing
poems, allowing student writers to "paw through popular
culture like sculptors on trash heaps." (Dillard) The poems
created are original poems; their themes and their
orderings invented. Their lines, when extracted from
existing poems, are not. This tool already uses lines from
Whitman's
"Song of Myself" and Dickinson's
"I'm Nobody..." However, it can be altered to accomodate lines from any
poem simply by deleting the lines that appear and inputting
ones that are new. The creation of found poetry allows
students to closely examine literary devices, syntax,
semantics, and meaning. Appropriate for grades k-12
(depending upon the poetry selected for students to "pull"
from.)
