Poetry Discussions and Fluency

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Who knew reading two short little poems could cause so much excitement in third graders?  During the past 12 days in class, we have been busily engaged in learning routines, how to have book talk conversations, how to synergize, and that repeated addition is a way to solve multiplication problems.  But, learning the important concept differentiating between our reading voice and our thinking voice and using them to comprehend two poems on a deeper level turned out to be one of the more enthusiastic, energetic and engaging lessons of our first two weeks.  Again, who knew?

This is the poster we use.  It came from a Smekens Education workshop. Excellent resource.

We used two short poems by Bruce Lansky to give our reading and thinking voices a trial run.  The students quickly learned that there was more to these poems than first met their eye.  They loved hearing the questions that popped into their minds, the confusion of what was happening, and how listening to their peers interpretations of the poems changed their perspectives.  They loved using what they learned about poetic devices to predict the final line in "They're Calling Me That Name Again."  That line surprised them all! The explosion of laughter and talk was thrilling!  In that moment, our students were truly loving what they read because they "got it." Once we interpreted the poems, we read them aloud from the poetry book "Almost Late To School" by Carol Diggery Shields.  The illustrations added to their understanding and finding the humor in them.

Great poems!

It was then time to read the poem with fluency and expression.  We loved experimenting with different paces, pauses, emphasis, and voices.  Once we finally had the performance as we wanted it, we decided to record it.  Here is their first poetry performance of the year.  We are so proud of them.

During independent work time, the students are individually recording themselves reciting the poem on SeeSaw, so it can be shared with their families and friends.

In the link, you will find the poems and discussion cards we used to spark interest and enjoyment!  We hope your students have as much fun with them as ours did.

Kim and Anne