By Kendra Schooley
4/28/2011
Recently Mr. Poggendorf and Mr. Gibson’s English 2 classes engaged in a creative poetry project. The students were required to select a song, find five poetic elements, and interpret the meaning of the song. Then, these findings were to be illustrated on a poster and presented to the class. Mr. Poggendorf stated that, “I definitely see the value in classic poetry. In fact, a great deal of class time was dedicated to Robert Frost. Most students, however, are more interested in analyzing the lyrics of their favorite songs. You can go through a Justin Bieber or Metallica song and find the same poetic elements contained in William Shakespeare or Walt Whitman. The students did a great job with this unit, and hopefully had a good time doing it.” Mr. Poggendorf came up with the idea for this project while student teaching at Paris High School. He knew that teaching poetry to teenagers would be difficult, so he tried to incorporate something that would truly “draw them in.” Personally, as a student who completed this project, the poetry unit has been one of my favorite things we have covered this year.
