Analyzing and Writing Poetry - G5-12 - Booking form
For teachers who aren’t familiar with poetry, assisting students in understanding not only how a poem was written, the imagery, and word use, but also where it fits within history and society can create anxiety.
Analyzing and Writing Poetry
Designed for students in Grades 5-12
What students will discover:
Students will gain an understanding of effective poetry analysis by examining literary devices, form, symbolism, where the poem fits within history and society, who the author was/is, as well as the audience they were addressing during the creation of the poem. All this will be done in such a way as to alleviate student anxiety, disinterest, and reluctance and get the students excited about poetry and their place within it. Students will then write a poem of their own in a way that elevates their self-esteem and shows them that poetry is something not to be feared, but embraced. Our AWCS Poetry Instructors bring years of academic experience to the classroom - they are poets, instructors, and performers themselves and have a passion that is contagious.
Outcomes:
Students will gain confidence in effectively analyzing and understanding example poetry, and feel comfortable creating their own poem in a similar style. Teachers will also be able to gain insight into methods of teaching poetry without anxiety.
Curriculum Touch Points:
Grades 5-6
- Explore various poetic forms and structures, figurative language, and poetry as a form of expression while practicing comprehension strategies to make inferences, analyze new information, and interpret text.
- Explore the historical, social, and cultural contexts behind texts, and understand authors’ perspectives and/or biases then create poems using a variety of forms and structures.
- Learn to effectively communicate ideas through writing, including planning, organization, editing, and building creative thinking skills to develop a distinctive personal writing style and utilize language effectively.
Grades 7-9
- Explore the relationship between form, content, and purpose as well as personal opinions and understandings to note how these factors influence the expression of ideas and the understanding of the text.
- Utilize strategies such as paraphrasing, rereading and group discussion, historical and authorial perspective, and historical themes and situations to comprehend and understand the text and the vocabulary within it.
- Identify and consider the effects of literary techniques and features such as symbolism, theme, perspective, and a variety of historical and contemporary language such as connotative vs. denotative meanings, dialects, slang, and idioms.
- Draw from personal experiences and knowledge to not only generate ideas and create original texts but to take a critical perspective toward literary texts, and suggest alternative techniques or treatments.
Grades 10-12
- Analyze and comprehend new texts by focusing on purpose, audience, perspective, context, form, figurative language/symbolism, and various rhetorical and stylistic techniques - then form a new perspective while cultivating a personal appreciation for a variety of texts, genres, forms, authors, and common themes.
- Develop a critical perspective toward texts using factors such as realism, effectiveness, moral/ethical stance, and social/cultural influences. Consider the variety of moral, ethical, and cultural issues presented and relate them to other texts/knowledge to learn to recognize the influence of underlying assumptions held by oneself and others.
- Experiment with language, image, and structure to create a variety of emotional effects and improve personal craft while considering contexts such as audience.
- Understand effective communication through the interplay of medium, form, and structure and use conventions appropriately, taking ownership of creative text creation by maintaining cohesion, consistency, organization, and style, then editing issues where present.
Cost for schools
This program is best taught as a single session (K-1) or half-day program (G2-3). Multiple classes can experience this workshop over a day.
- $350.00 a session (60-90 minutes)
- $650.00 half-day session (morning or afternoon)
- $1200.00 for a full day
Save money by booking multiple classes!
For example: For the single full-day fee, you can book two single sessions for Kindergarten - Grade 1 in the morning and a half-day session in the afternoon for Grades 2-3.
Not in the Calgary area? Contact us about getting a remote instructor.
School on a tight budget. Let's chat. We may be able to work something out.
