Access Today The Poets Pen: Writing Poetry With Middle And High School Students Constructed By Betty Bonham Lies Made Available In Paperback
have to admit, when I opened this book I ordered from Amazon and saw the thickly printed fonts, like oldtype photocopied text, I was worried that it would feel out of date.
A glance at the copyright date ofdid not instill confidence, and I was worried when the second line of the book included several typos.
But I soldiered on, and I'm glad I did,
The typos were part of a student's journal writing and were included without comment by Bonham Lies as evidence of the importance of including poetry across the curriculum.
A better introductory comment might have been useful, though, She is preaching to the choir, of course, since I love teaching poetry and have made my own presentations about including poetry writing exercises as part of activities not related to a "poetry unit.
" The author's writing is useful and precise, if a bit dated in the resources, and her examples for lessons and activities to ease students in and dig deeper are solid.
Chapter: Why Teach Writing The author writes extensively about the connection of poetry with precise word choice, descriptive language, freer and more creative thinking, and the way our brains react to text.
Again, her resources and citations are dated, so those could use an update, but they're not patently wrongyears later.
I think switching out all the references to Howard Gardner, whose Habits of Mind research has been
discredited, would be a start.
Updating the comments about using a word processor to regular use of classroom computers and smaller devices would be good.
Chapter: The Poetry Writing Program, The author outlines how she approaches poetry writing with her students, what teachers need to do to set expectations for student response groups and increasing the amount of poetry writing the students do.
Chapter: The Writer's Notebook, This chapter includes Betty Bonham Lies guidelines for student use of a writer's notebook, What is it for, what is it not for, and why make it a part of your classroom routine.
Chapter: Getting Started, There are twelve great intro lessons in this chapter, how to ease students into writing poetry regularly, but in lowstakes situations, having them focus more on the creativity and word choice and structure, not to mention the fun.
Chapter: Teaching Poetry Writing, This chapter is all about craft, although I don't think she ever uses that word, It includes lessons and approaches for teaching about and writing with good word choice, structure, imagery, rhythm and rhyme, and revising.
Chapter: Creating Poetry Writing Topics, In this chapter, the author lists dozens of prompts from everyday life and inspiration from alreadypublished works to give you ideas for creating your own writing topics for students.
Almost all of her examples also have examples of poems her students wrote when she used this writing prompt in her own classes.
Some of these topics could even be used in school courses other than English courses,
Chapter: Writing about Literature with Poetry, This is exactly what it sounds like tips for how to use writing poetry as a form of reader response.
There are general topics that you can use for any reading, but she also includes a chunk of examples specifically drawn from Beowulf/Grendel, Canterbury Tales, and/Brave New World.
At the end of the book, there are other sections: a really useful glossary of poetry terms and a list of resources she cited and that you might want to use to learn more about poetry.
The book of how to write poetry, The book of poem has provided massive input on how to implement the poetic aesthetic in the classroom to improve the student ins and outs of literature.
Liked the book but there's way too much poems samples from her ten grade students, Could've put less in concise way, To rhyme or not to rhyme That's NOT the only question! An absolute must buy for the novice and an incredible asset for any writing teacher, this book gives you guidelines for starting a poetry writing program and then the tools to do it.
Lies offers practical advice on teaching the technical aspects of poetry, suggests ways to revise work and overcome writer's block, and discusses how to integrate poetry writing with other parts of the curriculum.
Numerous exercises, examples of student work, an annotated bibliography of sources for further ideas, and a glossary of poetic terms are included.
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