Chapter 11

In discussion eleven, we were instructed to describe a way to fit poetry in a unit. We were told to name the kind of poetry it was and how we would formatively and summatively assess it. I chose to do my writing across the curriculum unit on oceans. I incorporated poetry into one of my lessons. I had students write an acrostic poem. I first modeled the poem using the spelling for fish. I wrote a sentence about fish for each letter of the word. After I model the acrostic poem, as independent practice, the students will create their own acrostic poem using the word ocean. As a formative assessment, I will confer with the students as I walk around the room. I will provide positive feedback to those who are on task and doing the assignment as instructed. For those that are not on task or not completing the assignment as instructed, I will have a mini-conference with them to determine what questions they still have about the acrostic poem. For a summative assessment, I have a rubric that I will follow to assess the poem. In order to get “Exceed” on all parts, the students must have created an acrostic poem with complete sentences, stayed on topic by using O-C-E-A-N, used complete sentences, had less than 3 spelling errors, and had correct capitalization and punctuation. This is just one example of poetry to use in a unit. I thought a very interesting poem that Tompkins (2013) notes in the textbook that would also accommodate ELLs was a bilingual poem (p. 326). By having the students do this type of poem, the ELLs would feel more comfortable being able to use, and even share with others, their home languages and the other students could use this as an opportunity to research certain words and expand their vocabulary. I also liked how J. Cannon (2013) used a Who Am I poem (Livetext posting). I think these types of poems not only get students involved in poetry, they also get the students to think at a higher level. The types of who am I questions are