I Didn’t Know that was Poetry [8th grade]

In this unit students will study poetry and its relationship to prose. Students will gain an appreciation of poetry as an art form because they will understand that poetry surrounds us in our everyday life. It is not an outdated form of communication, but, rather, a form of communication which is present everywhere in our lives such as in song, nursery rhymes, advertisements, and brand names. The students will explore different types of poems and the specific rules for each type. In exploring poetry, students will learn to extract meaning not just from the words of the poem but also through its use of poetic devices. An exploration of the most common poetic devices will provide students with a working vocabulary to better analyze both poetry and prose. The students will also learn the importance of the format of a poem. The white space, line length, shape, and absence of grammar can all impact the meaning of the poem for the individual reader. In the end, it is my hope that students will feel more comfortable reading poetry for pleasure because they are now familiar with the format and all those aspects of poetry that make it “too hard to read.” In exploring the variety of poets, it is my hope that each student can find at least one whom he/she can identify with and understand