Poetry!
This week's session we focused on another genre of writing , introduction to poetry. Our lecturer began by informing the student teachers that there are misconceptions about poetry. Some misconceptions include poetry always rhyme, does not make sense , is something we have to do, uses a complex language and lastly I cannot write poetry. The course lecturer then asked students to explain their understanding of poetry. She then called on both volunteers and non volunteers to give their response; individuals were able to define the term poetry. In addition, she gave us a simple definition of poetry it is a literature that expresses, ideas, feelings or tells a story in a specific form and stanzas. She elaborated that lines are to poems as sentences are to paragraphs. Also, stanza are to poem as paragraphs are to essay. We also looked at the different types of poems namely: formula, color, free from, concrete,rhymed and limerick. Moreover, we focused on syllable and word count poems such as cinquain ( 5 lines), diamante (7 lines) and haiku ( 17 syllables). Our course lecturer read to the class an example of a cinquain poem which goes like this:
Mice
Little, quiet
Running, crawling,jumping
Bear holes in mama,s furniture
Demons
After reading the poem, each student teacher was given a few minutes to create their own cinquain poem and a few were selected to share what they wrote. To conclude the session our course lecturer asked the students, Do you think poetry can be incorporated during instruction across the curriculum? What really stood out for me in this session was poetry can be used in the classroom in any content areas during instruction so that students can better understand the concepts taught. I suggest that the lecturer can allow us to continue writing and reviewing our poetry pieces so that we can become successful writers. Here's a video that explains one of my favorite type of poem, a cinquain!
