These are a few of my favorite things...

Thinking back to my elementary school years, I loved just about all types of poetry and writing because I got to be creative and use my imagination. Now, the more that I think about it, the more that I like Free Verse type of poetry. While I do like other types of poetry, I like that fact that in free verse, there are not many boundaries as to how many syllables or words you have to use on each line and how many lines you have to have. With free verse, you are telling a story and rhyming without many other limitations.

In my own classroom, I will teach my students all types of poetry and have then practice each type, but I will probably enjoy free verse the most. Putting limitations on students is not always a good thing because it does not necessarily allow the students to show you their best work because they are to consumed with the limitations that are set before them. In the end, it comes down to what each student enjoys the most and what they can be the most successful in.

Talk...

Talk and communication are very powerful tools used in a classroom on a daily basis. Both the activity that we did in class today, Chalk Talk, as well as the movie clip from Freedom Writers, were both good examples of this fact. I liked doing the Chalk Talk activity because it allowed us to realize how important talking really is to us because we could not talk. And the communication barriers that were broken in the movie clip allowed us to see students felt towards their teacher because they did not feel as if she understood them. By letting the students speak their mind towards her and the other students, they felt more as if she was making an effort to understand how they feel. Being able to have these open communication lines with students allows them to feel valued in the classroom. While talking is not the only way of communicating, it is one of the best ways for thoughts and feelings to be expressed. In the future, I hope to find a way to incorporate this activity, in some shape or fashion, into my classroom!