WORMS!

2B is having too much fun with poetry. Poetry is one of my favorite units because of the artistry inherent in its written craft. I feel especially passionate about it, and I'm thinking it's catching on amongst the class.

On Friday, Haleigh performed a rendition of "Hiccups" by the hilarious children's poet Jack Prelutsky with poise, humor, and fluency. I was in stitches and our class listened actively and in amazement at Haleigh's excellent reading and flawlessly placed "hiccup" sounds as she read. I wish I caught that one on tape. The celebrated her reading with a round of snaps, as in a coffee shop listening to a poetry slam.

Instead, I have a little gem of a video to share with you from Reading Workshop on Friday. Students are growing in their understanding that poems demand to be read in very intentional ways in order to carry the meaning and music they were written to carry.

Our students might have thought I had gone looney when I told them to "watch me" as I got up, walked across the room, sat on the floor quite close the wall, and started reading to it. The strategy is called Reading to the Wall, and it's a way to develop fluency and meaning in poetry by reading aloud to the wall to perfect performances while hearing oneself.

Though it's a little loud in the background (only because all students were excitedly reading to the piece of wall they had laid claim to), here is a short clip of Cade "reading to the wall." The poem, by Frank Flynn, is called "Spaghetti" and it is about spaghetti's uncanny, fun-but-grotesque likeness to worms (wriggling down your throat, flapping on the side of your face as you slurp). At one point, Flynn writes "WORMS!" on the page...so when you hear lots of screaming, it means students reading to the wall around the room had reached that part and are reading it just as it was meant to be read--in a scream! Next time you eat spaghetti, I hope you don't think of WORMS!