Poetry Group

One of my favorite aspects of our presentation is that we had a lot of different ways of writing poetry. Most of us choose a poem structure that was less intimidating for students. When introducing poetry, i believe as a teacher, your main goal is to keep it simple to gain appreciation and motivation.
The first poem I believe would be great to create empathy from different perspectives. The I am poem describes a person and their experiences. I believe that it is very important for students to learn about different cultures and different experiences and then express them in their own words. One more important thing to learn about the I am poem, is that it would be a great example to use in a multi genre piece. You can use a person in history and write their perspective on a certain event in history.

The second poem the Found Poem, is a great way to increase creativity and brainstorming for poetry. It is a very fun exercise for students to cut and paste and socialize. It is interesting to see how students use this poetry to create some really amazing interpretations. This poem can also increase their personal vocabulary, as well as, their own personal diction.

The third poem was the Confession Poem. This would be great to interpret characters in a different way, other than writing an essay or report. At the same time, the students are allowed to interact with characters by getting inside their heads and creating a confession that would make the rest of the class recognize each character through their personality. This is also fun and entertaining, and it does allow a lot of room for empathy and creativity among different perspectives.
The fourth and final poem is a little more complicated and involves a lot more time and work. There is a process to complete a memory map and list poem. However, this kind of poem is a great example of how brainstorming can be used to produce amazing poetry. The most important part of the list poem is recreating places, events, and feelings using words and pictures. It is truly beneficial to use personal experiences to write poetry, because that is what students already know and understand.

As a teacher I would love to use all forms of poetry, because you can use all of them to achieve a lesson in any type of classroom. My personal philosophy is centered around empathy and learning through multiple perspectives. Each poem leaves room for creativity and actual facts. In my opinion each poem is great to get students energized about poetry and they also held reduce any anxiety centered around poetry.

Group Teach #2

I enjoyed this goups hard work and well represented team work. The first day was good and there was good class discussion. I think it resembled how our class has been going this semester. It was comfortable for us as a class to interact and responed in that way. However, I think the discussion did get a little off topic, and it is hard for me to remember what we did on that first day. But, I do remember leaving the class feeling like there was a well rounded discussion that was very informative.

The second day was my favorite. I really enjoyed the simulation. At first, i will admit I did not like it, because I had no idea what was going on. But, after some time I realized that was the point. I remember looking at my Police Officer and asking if we can go to the bank to get a building permit, and she said no and looked the other way. After five minutes of asking she said, " why? You are just going to rob the bank anyway." I was like what the-- Anyway, a couple more minutes went by and she finally allowed me to go get a permit, however when we got in line I was sent to jail by the sherriff, for no reason at all. This kind of beahvior towards my group got real frustrating and soon we just sat there. We just sat there because we could not successfully accomplish any of our goals.

After the similation was over, we all discussed the groups we were in. I felt this excercise would be great to used with college students but not high school students. The only way I would use this in a High School classroom is if I changed the groups to fit groups of people in my lesson. For example, Native Americans, French, and the British. It would be more "Safe" to use fictional or old unrelated groups to stop any kind of offensive behavior. Because kids can be so mean.

I think and activity like this needs to be administered with care, especially the talk after. It is really important for people to realize stereotypes and empathize with different cultures. However, many things that can be said, can be siad in a offensive way when they really weren't mean to be taken that way. All in all, this activity could work in my class someday, but i would prefer to change the groups from modern social and racial stereotypes to more of a historical empathy lesson.