Why a good book is a secret door

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Alex Archer: Poetry

Alex Archer: Poetry

Love That Dog was a seriously awesome book and was as fantastic as everyone had talked about it being all semester. I was skeptical about how a kids book could be so great but I most definitely on board now; I’m almost disappointed it wasn’t based off a true story! While reading the poem from Jack’s point of view my future teacher brain was constantly reeling, hoping I could use a lesson like this in the future.

From what I gathered it seemed as though Miss Strechberry had an on going poetry lesson throughout the school year. I imagined that certain days she would set aside “poetry time” where she would read some poems to her students, maybe give a mini lesson about the type of poem she would read that day, and then have the students write in their poem journal. From what I gathered from Jack’s writing was that she asked her student to try to write something similar to the poem they heard or write their thoughts about the poem. After each journal entry they must have turned it in to the teacher so she could give them feedback.

My favorite part about Miss Stretchberry’s pedagogy was that she was not one to critique the students work, instead I feel as though she was only inquisitive about the students work to help encourage them to think deeper, do more. She never seemed critical only encouraging which is a great skill to acquire as a teacher. As we learned by the end of the book that Jack went from refusing to write poetry to really enjoying it. I feel as though Miss Strechberry’s poetry unit reflects what we have been learning in Miller’s text about forming a relationship with reading, but in this case forming a relationship with poetry. I feel as though this type of continuous activity is very effective and is something I would love to implement in my future classroom.

On a different subject, here is my version of the “so much depends upon…” poem that Jack wrote about in Love That Dog:

so much depends

upon

a ripe avocado

sliced

next to a cold glass

of sweet iced tea

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