Understanding Student Misconceptions: Robert Frost And Emily Dickenson

Language is a remarkable thing. It can convey every thought, feeling, and emotion with perfect accuracy. Almost exclusively, language has taken awkward, unfit animals out of nature and made them rulers over the earth and many of its elements. When used well, it has the power to change an individual's view of the world, make someone believe they have seen something they have not, and even more astonishingly, look inside one's self and see what exists. If language is mixed with the tempo of music, something new arises; poetry is born. When words and ideas are set to a beat, they can far more subtly convey concepts that would otherwise need to be explicitly stated and the poem can be appreciated more as a whole,

The conversation between child and parent in the previous paragraph may be a relatable situation for students, but it is not one they often see presented to them poetically. The Crossover is rife with everyday activities such as conversation, texting, doing homework and, of course, playing basketball. These scene present in poetry expose the growing resentment and eventual grief of the protagonist through a variety of figurative language techniques that enforces their importance and power to students in a way the traditional, unconnected anthology poetic does not. By doing this, “The Crossover” opens up a new understanding to students who found understanding poetry both boring and unattainable enter their literary

Poetry is considered to be a representational text in which one explores ideas by using symbols. Poetry can be interpreted many different ways and is even harder to interpret when the original author has come and gone. Poetry is an incredible form of literature because the way it has the ability to use the reader as part of its own power. In other words, poetry uses the feelings and past experiences of the reader to interpret things differently from one to another, sometimes not even by choice of the author. Two famous poets come to mind to anybody who has ever been in an English class, Robert Frost and E.E. Cummings. Both of these poets have had numerous famous pieces due to the fact that they both

My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.

“Backward Design” is the name of a technique used by teachers when designing curriculum. The concept

When I first thought about taking poetry writing the first thing that crossed my mind was when I took an intro poetry course at LaGuardia Community College. While the course was intriguing it was quite difficult because we had to break down every poem to discover the meaning. That meant paraphrasing the words into your own words without changing the meaning but also trying to understand exactly what is being said. I had always believed that this is an abstract idea; this course did not allow that. So when it was time to take poetry writing I avoided it until I could not anymore. However, as the course began I was pleasantly surprised at what I was able to learn these past seven weeks. One of the things that I was excited to discover was that

In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by

Billy Collins’ poem “Introduction to Poetry” provides a coded guide to help beginning readers understand how to unlock the mysteries of poetry. The speaker urges readers to read critically with an emphasis on the poem’s structure, sound, and artistic merit, but cautions them against getting so caught up in the search for meaning that they forget to enjoy the poem. Poetry can be a challenge to read for many, and Billy Collins wants to help students overcome this challenge. When reading poetry it’s easy for us to try and overanalyze the text trying to find its deeper meaning. Collins theme of “Introduction to Poetry” is to enjoy reading poetry and not to “torture a confession out of it”.

century. Most Americans recognize his name, the titles of and lines from his best-known poems, and even his face. Given his immense popularity, it is a remarkable testimony to the extent of his achievement that he is also considered to be one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of modern American poets. "…the life and work of America's premier poet- the only truly national poet America has yet produced"(Parini23). His influence is still being felt in American life today. His success in America as well as in England has guaranteed the preservation of his legacy for generations to come. "…Frost gradually evolved from poet to cultural icon,

While poetry seems to become more and more obsolete in the 21st Century, writers like E.E. Cummings set a precedent for unique literary works through poems. Unlike famous writers such as William Shakespeare, Cummings never found the need to follow patterns other authors used. He enjoyed the freedom of poetry and accentuated letters to form and create stories that speak to his readers. Although during his time many did not see his talent, it is writers like Cummings who now make poetry fun. Rather than rigid rules and repeating rhyme schemes, words straight from the heart and mind of Cummings flowed onto paper. His rawness today provides a fresh look a poetry and entices those who see poems as boring, mundane,

I confess I’m guilty of not listening to my students more carefully and try to correct them quickly without giving them the chance to explain their answers. Part of this rush was due to time constrictions. Some students take quite some time to open up and develop their answers and we, as teachers, feel we can’t afford that much time for each student reply. Regarding poetry, it’s been even more challenging. I found Heard’s ideas and techniques highly inspiring and useful. Having kids reflect about poetry through some king of ‘guiding’ questions is brilliant. The genre is hard enough for some of them, and the traditional techniques didn’t help much. When children understand the concepts and are able to apply them on their own is when true

Select two poems that you consider to be your best work from the required writing assignments in lessons 1–6. Each of these poems should be at least eight or nine lines in length and no longer than thirty, which means that if you choose to submit a short poem such as a cinquain or a haiku, you will need to select an additional one in order to meet the minimum length requirement. One of the poems should follow an established format (a sonnet, villanelle, cinquain, or haiku, etc..) and one should be written in free verse. Both (or all) poems should include the following:

Each year, a collective sigh rings out in high school classrooms across America, brought on by what is arguably the greatest beast students are forced to grapple with every single year: the dreaded Poetry Unit. While the previous statement is most definitely dramatic and not always true, it is a fact that many students have been tricked into thinking that they dislike poetry by overzealously technical teachers. I was once one of those students. The mere mention of a Poetry Unit brought war flashbacks of tedious analyses of rhyme scheme, meter, similes, metaphors, and more that took robbed me of the ability to enjoy reading poetry. Perhaps the greatest crime against poetry that certain teachers commit is the lie that they tell students every time the Poetry Unit rolls around: “There is no right answer.” Teachers who say this almost always, without fail, have a right answer in mind and will not hesitate to penalize students who naively believe that there isn’t one and, therefore, fail to find it. I didn’t realize that poetry was readable and even, dare I say, entertaining, until I took my first college English class, where I was able to read poetry without worrying about the technical aspects of it. My goal in teaching a Poetry Unit is to free students from the baggage that is all too often associated with learning poetry and allow them to discover how meaningful it can be.

In my preparation for this essay I thought that there was going to be very little that I would learn about the elements of poetry. This is not because I am an expert and have nothing new to learn, but rather the opposite. I have never really spent the time to break down and appreciate poetry. One of the reasons I think that I haven’t spent the time on poetry is due to my reading habits. I usually read to gather information and poetry is on the other end of the spectrum. Fredrick Gruber sums this up, “Poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.” (Gruber) Having said all of this though, I did see a couple of things that I could apply to my own writing. I will first start off with some elements of poetry that I

I have seen students, who were struggling in memorizing the poem, asking a classmate to help them practice the poem and every day, during recess, the student would practice under the classmate’s watchful eye, making sure the poem was memorized correctly, so that the student can share it with the family. Seeing that, I realized that the poem is not only a wonderful introduction to literature and the language arts, but that it is also a very powerful connection to their parents, strong enough to motivate a child to forego recess and practice memorizing.