Scaffolding: From Writer to Poet

I think there is a major stigma against writing poetry, which I have briefly discussed in previous posts, and I think this is what leads to many people believing they themselves cannot write poetry. When we are taught about poetry in school it seems like this confusing jumble of words you are meant to decipher. Personally I was never able to properly analyze each poem to find its hidden meaning. Trying to figure out what someone else’s words mean is one feat of its own, how am I supposed to create something so intricate that other people will tediously try to interpret it? If I am being totally honest this was my mindset until recently. I would attempt to write poetry but never believed it to be any good. What is poetry anyway? Every poem I read seemed so different yet still so unattainable to me, definitely not something I could create on my own. Luckily the texts I have been introduced to throughout the last few months have opened a door for me, making me much more confident in my poetry-writing abilities. This change in mindset, however, did not come easily. I had to learn ways to support my writing using scaffolding, different mentor texts, and a lot of practice. Throughout my post this week I will be sharing some of the strategies I have tried and the work that came from it.

Broadening my understanding of poetry through finding new resources has been one way I have tremendously improved not only my writing but also my confidence in doing so. I had not realized how you could interact with poetry in ways other than reading a single printed poem, and as a visual learner this piqued my interest. I have really enjoyed interacting with poetry using other formats and modalities like verse novels, recorded read alouds, videos of poets discussing poetry, and picture books written in verse. Each of these different formats provided me with more clarity on what poetry is and a plethora of new strategies I could use. I could utilize these strategies during the brainstorming process to help me select topics to write about, to use as a model when producing my own poetry, and to practice new and creative ways to showcase my work.

Considering how much this increased my interest in poetry, I am sure it would have that same effect on young students if you introduced them to poetry in a similar way, using a variety of formats. Some students may become interested in poetry from solely reading different poems and may even enjoy analyzing it to find its underlying meaning, but this method will not necessarily engage each of your students.

Here I will include a few of my favorite sources of inspiration that I have discovered, please feel free to share any of your favorites with me!

One way I have used these new resources to scaffold my writing development is using them as a model to guide my writing. Although copying is typically frowned upon in schools, I have found it helpful when I first begin writing a piece of poetry. This week I actually wrote two poems where I used other pieces of poetry as a model. I began my writing by completing an “observational drawing,” which was introduced to me through Awakening the Heart by Georgia Heard. First I drew an object from nature, then an ordinary object that is important to me. I selected a daffodil as my object from nature because they are my favorite flower and I always enjoy when they begin to bloom during this time of year. I was on a walk when I noticed a lone daffodil growing in an unkempt flowerbed, blooming in solidarity among the dried plants from the previous year. For my ordinary object I chose a marbled apple, given to me by my Memaw. She was a teacher and she always kept this apple on her desk. Once she retired she passed the apple down to me so once I have a classroom of my own I, too, can display it on my desk. Taking the time to complete these drawings allowed me to notice the small details on each of these objects that otherwise would have gone unnoticed and provided me with ideas of different visual elements I could reference when writing my poetry later. This is also a fun way to brainstorm ideas for writing as it requires you to really sit and focus on your chosen object as you recreate it in your drawing. I always enjoyed learning activities that felt more like a fun experience rather than an annoying task, and this strategy provided me with just that.

Once I had completed my drawings, which are shown in the above images, I began the writing process. As previously mentioned, copying can be a helpful strategy when you begin writing, so I used a poem from Firefly July by Paul Janeczko as a model. This serves as an excellent mentor text because it shares an abundance of simplistic poems about different common objects or experiences that are easy to relate to and recreate. For each of my poems I borrowed different lines from the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, using them as sentence starters to guide my writing. My completed poems are very similar to the model poem, just slightly tweaked as I intertwined elements regarding my chosen objects. Here I will share the poem from Firefly July with you in addition to my two completed poems.

After completing a drawing and a poem for each of my objects, utilizing the different texts as models, I felt much more prepared when beginning my next piece of writing. I once again used a poem as a model, but this time I incorporated more of my own ideas into my work. For this writing experience I used the poem "mushroom" from all the small poems and fourteen more by Valerie Worth to guide my writing. I began by writing a poem about the daffodil. In this piece you can still clearly see evidence of the mentor poem, but it is evident I also incorporated several of my own ideas to make the piece more of my own. As I moved on to write the poem about the marbled apple, once again using "mushroom" as a model, I incorporated fewer elements from the model poem and more of my own ideas. Although you may still notice a few elements from "mushroom" in my final piece, it is clearly more individualized to me as I allowed my ideas to dominate my writing. For each of these poems, which I have shared with you below, I made modifications wherever I felt was necessary to produce a piece of writing that embodied who I am as a writer and properly discussed my chosen objects.

Throughout this writing process I was able to create several different pieces of work in a relatively short amount of time because I had credible mentor texts to reference for support. I was also much less hesitant to write because I scaffolded my level of support by brainstorming using the "observational drawing" strategy, mimicking a poem in my own writing, and finally modifying a poem to create an individualized piece. Similar to how these different strategies and levels of support aided me as I practiced my writing, students could benefit from receiving this type of instruction centered around poetry. Following a similar scaffolding method as I have described throughout this post in addition to implementing a wide variety of engaging, multimodal resources are a few ways to increase your students' engagement when working with poetry. In the text Awakening the Heart by Georgia Heard there are many different writing strategies discussed, including the "observational drawing" I tried out this week, that share engaging ways you can introduce and have students interact with poetry. As I continue to progress through this book I look forward to sharing and practicing the different strategies discussed, and eventually implementing them into my writing instruction.