Kovalcik & Certo 2007

The big idea behind this article, surrounds incorporating mini-lessons of Poetry into the classroom. The way that these poetry mini lessons were incorporated was modeled after specific types of poem. The desired result from these lessons would be to have a "cafe" like setting where the students had the opportunity to present their poetry they had been working on to parents, teachers, administrators, etc. The result would come from various mini-lessons on specific types of poetry. Various types included, onomatopoeia, color /rhyme, repetition/alliteration, and collaborative poetry. Once the lessons were completed, letters would be sent home to parents/ families about the cafe they would have in the classroom. Students used peer conferencing to prepare themselves for the cafe, and they rehearsed reading their poetry pieces aloud for one another. When they did this, students were encouraged to say two positive comments, and one suggestion for improvement.

I think I could use this approach at my grade level, however I think that the poetry lessons would need to be more advanced- or more detailed, because my students are in the sixth grade. I think that poetry is a valuable thing to incorporate into writing/ reading instruction because it can be so powerful and give the students a chance to feel connected to something so powerful. For my students, I do not know if I would have the cafe setting because it seems like my students would benefit more from something like an "open mic night" or just a day in our classroom where we perform for each other- in a less exaggerated way. Rather, it is just an opportunity to share our poetry if we felt like it. Students would have a few mini-lessons on specific types of poetry and they could write and turn in those poems-- but then also students could have the opportunity to do research on different types of poetry and they could complete a poem of whatever type they choose- and they could have the chance to share one of these and/or other poems in an "open mic" sort of format, so it feels more informal- yet still exciting.

For this approach to work well with my students, I would need to find out and study what types of poetry, if any my students have already studied and what sorts of lessons or formats of studying poetry have they experienced. I would also benefit from talking and visiting with other teachers who teach upper elementary grades to find out how they have incorporated poetry lesson in their literacy instruction.

My unit focuses on expository texts- and I think that I would need to assess how they read different types of text, as well as how they write different types or genres of writing. In the sixth grade they go through a number of differing types of writing. They are beginning with their personal narrative- and through writer's workshop and analysis of student work in this module- I realize there are so many different ways to assess my students in both reading/ writing. As writers, for my unit I think having them write an essay with a prompt question based on one of the expository texts we study, or a prompt from a text given with the prompt would be a valid way to assess them as both readers of expository texts and writers- when thinking about them using a writing process to write about text they had just read.