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Persisting With Poetry in the Common-Core Era By Francesca Duffy
Persisting With Poetry in the Common-Core Era
Most Fridays, Mary Lee Hahn, a 5th grade English and language arts teacher at Wright Elementary School in Dublin, Ohio, has her students pick a poem and recite it to the class. She's been doing this with her students for the past six years. Early in the school year, she starts by picking one or two of her favorite poems to share with the students, and then she gradually increases their comfort with poetry by having them give their own oral presentations.
The idea behind the activity is that pausing once a week to reflect on poetry, even if only for five minutes, can keep the genre from getting lost amidst other instructional demands.
As schools shift to the Common Core State Standards, which require more nonfiction reading than most students have traditionally been doing, many teachers are saying they feel compelled to cut imaginative literature from their curricula. And often, the least intrusive place to start is poetry.
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