1. What They Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them Linda Berlin Grandville High School lberlin@gpsbulldogs.org

2. Step One Read the poem, mark anything you don’t understand On a scale of 1 to 10 score your reading of the poem  10 means you understand the poem thoroughly  1 means you drew a complete blank

3. Step One Read the poem again Using a different pen, pencil, highlighter mark anything you don’t understand On a scale of 1 to 10 score your reading of the poem  10 means you understand the poem thoroughly  1 means you drew a complete blank

4. Step One Read the poem a third time Using a different pen, pencil, highlighter mark anything you don’t understand On a scale of 1 to 10 score your reading of the poem  1 means you are drawing a complete blank  10 means you understand the poem thoroughly

5. Step One – Triple Read Sheridan Blau, The Literature Workshop Students resist difficulty; when they encounter a difficult passage they throw up their hands and give up. It is our job to teach them how to tackle difficulty, how to embrace it. “Confusion represents an advanced state of understanding.”

6. Step Two Before we talk about what you know, I need you to reflect on what you don’t know Looking back at the poems, what didn’t you understand? Take a few minutes to write down what you had trouble with in these poems.

7. Step Two – Writing as Learning “Vygotsky and the Teaching of Writing” Asking students to put their confusion into words begins the process of working through that confusion Writing down what still remains troublesome take nebulous, abbreviated thoughts and makes them more complete and tangible

8. Step Three What do you usually do when you don’t know/understand something?  Look it up?  Ask someone?  Figure it out in context?  Work around it?  Other?

9. Step Three Share in your group what you didn’t know Help each other work through what you did not understand What you still can’t work out in your group, we’ll talk about as a class

10. Step Three – Small group Some students are afraid to share their ideas with the whole class  fear of being wrong  fear of looking like a know-it-all or a show off Small group work allows students to sort through their ideas in a safe place This also allows the “stupid” questions to be asked and answered

11. Step Four Was the material you didn’t understand vital to your overall understanding of the poem? What will you do on test day when you run across portions of a poem/prose passage that you have no prior knowledge to understand?

12. Step Four How to write about a poem like this: One sentence summary of poem – 50 words or less Thesis statement highlighting complexity Move through the poem chronologically stanza by stanza:  What does it say? – quick summary  What does it mean? – highlight “cool stuff”  What does it matter? – tie back to complexity

13. Step Four – AP English Poetry Essay Scored on a scale of 1-9 Students hoping to earn college credit should be able to earn a 6 or higher Students who simply summarize the poem, or who discuss the poets use of devices without addressing theme or complexity, can’t earn higher than a 5

14. Writing the AP English Poetry Essay Students must recognize the complexity of the work and be able to write about theme, complexity, and poetic devices…. …in 40 minutes They can only do this on the test if they have practice doing this in class  Guided practice and writing opportunities

15. “But I don’t teach AP English.” Poetry as flower  Appreciate the beauty, but also appreciate the artistry of the poet  Don’t beat the poem to death or torture meaning out of it, but let the poem reveal itself

16. “But I don’t teach AP English.” Poetry as Argument  Poetry seeks to define, persuade, woo, entice, motivate, inspire … the list goes on  Teach poetry as an argument about love, injustice, family, humanity, death, etc.  Teach poetic structures or choices as part of the argument  Help students find both the argument and the evidence in the poem

18. Getting started Find a poem just a bit beyond your students’ level of understanding  language or meaning, but not both Let the kids do all the work  Triple read and mark up  Writing to reflect on confusion  Small group discussion  Informal or formal written response, visual analysis, presentation

19. Resources Sarah Bauer, “Viewing a Poem as Argument”“Viewing a Poem as Argument” Sheridan Blau, The Literature Workshop Barbara Everson, “Vygotsky and the Teaching of Writing”“Vygotsky and the Teaching of Writing” Ogden Morse, “SOAPSTone: A Strategy for Reading and Writing”“SOAPSTone: A Strategy for Reading and Writing”