Entry 8

While reading Tompkins' (2008) chapter on poetry, I was surprised to find that there are so many forms of poetry.  There were even a few forms that I was not familiar with, such as clerihews (Tompkins, 2008).  I think that having a chapter on poetry is helpful for educators, and I wish that all teachers who are planning to teach poetry would read this chapter in Tompkins (2008), as it greatly improved my perception of this genre.  I recall when we first discussed poetry in class, we mentioned that it is a genre that many educators do not enjoy teaching.  Whether they are intimidated by poetry or simply unfamiliar with it, the consensus seems to be that many teachers lack confidence when teaching poetry and, possibly as a result of this, many students do not enjoy this unit either.

I was one of those students who did not enjoy the poetry unit.  I rarely ever read poetry, and I was not a huge fan of it, generally speaking.  Whenever my class would study poetry in high school, we would work to interpret poems.  This was often challenging for me, especially with poems written by "classic" poets.  I seemed to never interpret these poems the "correct" way.  This frustrated me, and so I never engaged very much with the poems that we studied.  Also, our poetry units in school were very short and seemed to only serve to expose us briefly to poetry, so that we would be familiar with this genre when we encountered it on the NYS Regents Exam.

I wish that, as a student, I had more exposure to poetry and had the freedom and the opportunity to create my own poems.  Being able to create poems using all of the forms mentioned in Tompkins (2008) would have allowed me to have the freedom to be creative.  This ability would also have given me added confidence in my ability to write poetry.  As a result, this added confidence would have likely transferred to my understanding of poetry, and I might have had more interest in this genre.

Now that I am older, I do write my own personal poetry.  However, I have never really associated these writings with the poetry that I studied in school.  Also, I am more receptive to reading poetry on my own at this point in my life.  While I still don't read poetry very often, my attitude toward this genre has improved.  Although my attitude about poetry has evolved, prior to reading Tompkins' (2008) chapter 11, I still had doubts about how to effectively teach poetry to my future students, as it is not my most favorite genre.  After reading this chapter, I found myself more excited about all of the ideas and possibilities when teaching poetry to students, as well as all of the types of poetry I could teach.  Tompkins (2008) has definitely caused me to start thinking differently about teaching poetry, and I hope that she has positively influenced others who may not have had the most positive view of this genre as well.

Also, Melissa G.’s presentation helped me to further develop my understanding of this genre.  Actually writing the types of poetry that I may ask my students to create in the future allowed me to better understand the aspects of poetry writing that could be challenging to them.  While my confidence in my own ability to write (and share) poetry did not increase substantially, I do feel more comfortable writing in this genre than I did prior to the presentation.  In addition, I had not realized how many great resources and examples of exemplary poetry are available to share with our students.  Melissa’s presentation made me feel more prepared and more excited about potentially teaching poetry in the future.