Poetry Café an inspiring experience during I Love to Read Month
By Mrs. Kat Poulin
Our class started doing quick writes in January; our focus was to build our writing fluency (how quickly we can write our thoughts down) and incorporate more powerful, descriptive language into our writing.
As we completed more and more quick writes, it became clear that we were beginning to master using powerful language in our writing. So, we tried creating some found poems using our most powerful words and phrases from a few of our writing pieces.
Our exploration of poetry was further deepened as we delved into Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb.” She inspired my class to not only create beautiful poems, but powerful ones. Poems about causes that are near and dear to their hearts – social justice, family, and the struggles of COVID-19.
For I Love to Read month, I read a novel to my class called, “Love that Dog” by Sharron Creech. It is a novel written in prose about a boy who isn’t a fan of poetry. The book incorporates poems from many famous poets like Robert Frost and Walter Dean Myers.
We also had a fun Poetry Battle in grades 3 and 4 this month. Throughout the battle, we explored rhyming poetry, limericks, free verse and concrete poems, solemn poems, inspirational poems, and poems that gave us the giggles! We used all of this wonderful poetry to help guide us as we created our own poetry anthologies.
To wrap up this incredible poetry study, we decided to have a poetry café. It took us one week to prepare for the “Starbooks” Poetry Café; the kids did an amazing job! They collaborated to create menus, signs, place mats, and so much more.
The café was held in the school library. We had two seatings so everyone had a chance to be a performer/café customer as well as a café staff member. Everyone took turns to recite their own poems to the class.
To say I am proud of my class is an understatement; their willingness to dive in and explore poetry has not only been rewarding, but inspiring.
Thank you for all of your hard work, Grade 4!
POETRY CAFÉ – Teacher Kat Poulin and her class of 20 Grade 4 students put on their “Starbooks” Poetry Café on Wednesday in the Killarney School Library. The students took turns reciting their own poems to the class and café patrons.
JAY STRUTH/KILLARNEY GUIDE PHOTO
YOUNG POET AT THE PODIUM – Killarney School student Andrew Engbrecht took the microphone and presented his poetry during Wednesday’s Starbooks Poetry Café at the school.
EXPLORING POETRY AND EMBRACING LANGUAGE – Staff at Killarney School also enjoyed some lounging along with literary pleasure, during the Starbooks Poetry Café event held at the school on Wednesday.
KAT POULIN/PHOTOS
Click on the link below to see what else Killarney School was up to during I Love to Read Month.