Poetry (Christensen & Macaluso)

   This week we read about a topic that is personal to many students and teachers: poetry. Both authors, Christensen and Macaluso talk about how poetry can bring real life events into a different light. Through poetry, one can make an experience real for the reader. By putting the audience into their own shoes, poets can tell stories that go deeper than the normal conversation. 

   Christensen encourages her students to write poems that incorporate some element of their personal life. This could be a family member, part of their native language, or a meal that is special to their family. This allows teachers to gain insight into their students' lives, as well as gauge their skills as writers. One idea that I thought was great from the first chapter in Teaching for Joy and Justice was the brainstorming activity Christensen did with her students on creating a poem. She first had her students look at the different parts of a poem. They looked at the verb "raised" for example, and asked for different words for raised. This allowed the poem to evolve within the classroom.

   The Malacuso article also offered insight into the world of poetry. Author Kati Malacuso recounts of writing a poem for a poetry class. She creates a poem out of an elderly couple in the supermarket. The poem she creates puts the reader inside of her head. She makes the audience feel that they are there themselves in the supermarket, beside the old woman who is afraid of her husband not returning. I believe the most important thing Macaluso says is that she could explain the story piece by piece, but she would rather not. She states, "This explanation would have been accurate, but it would not have done justice to this experience. It needed a poem."

This video shows author Linda Christensen explaining how important writing is for both teachers and students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVV4JZNohhQ