A New Semester Begins...

So, it's the first semester of my Senior year. I am in awe that I have made it this far. Sometimes, I want to pinch myself to make sure it's real. Although it's only been a few months, I feel like it's been forever since I've been talking about my hopes and fears for my future classroom. I filled my summer with reading all the books I wanted to read but didn't have time to and certainly never got through my list.

The semester started out with poetry. POETRY. I am an English major and I don't like poetry. GASP! There I've said it. This week, after we had to actually write a poem, the first chapter of our reading was about poetry. Imagine my delight. Something changed in me though. Last semester I rekindled my love for writing, as I cut off the scar tissue past teachers had left on my ability to write, this semester I believe I will reunite with poetry. See, I used to love poetry when I was in high school. I wasn't always a hater, but then there were those teachers/professors/authors who taught me poetry was hard, and a mystery, and had one right way to be interpreted. Well that was it. What I loved about poetry was that I could read it and allow it to make me feel, how it made me feel. I could pick out what resonated in me. Instead, I found myself trying to get into the author's, or my teacher's, head and see what they were thinking so I could write an interpretation and get an "A." I rebelled against poetry and decided it wasn't what I thought it was, so we broke up.

In the reading this week, Lois Christensen uses poetry in her classroom to build classroom community, get her students to express themselves, and their views on the world. As I read through her strategies and samples of her students poems, I remembered what I once loved about poetry. Christensen allows her students the opportunity to build connections with each other and the world around them through their poems. She scaffolds the writing process for them so that they can confidently come up with a great piece. She starts with asking them to look at a sample poem, then pick out some themes. How is the poem set up/grouped? Look for repetition, lists. Then she asks the students to make their own lists, memories, feelings. From there students put together a poem using a similar format as their model. This is what our Professor did with us this week, and even better, she did it with us.

If there is one thing I have learned in the education program, it's how to model. My professors have been amazing with that and I have seen how beneficial it has been for me as a learner. I appreciate the fact that she too became vulnerable as she read her poem out loud to all of us. Let's face it, poetry, any poetry, is personal and can be tough to share. Christensen did the same with her classes and although I have not physically seen her classes, I can see from her students work that they were comfortable and they had a strong sense of community.

And so, I am starting the semester already rekindling a lost love. I am excited for what this semester will bring. I am pretty sure I'll be teaching one of these poems this semester and I will somehow remind students of the freedom writing, in any form, can bring.