January 17, 2021

5 Characteristics of Graphic Novels You Must Know!

5 characteristics of graphic novels you must know are essential to teach students prior to reading the graphic novel. What is a graphic novel? A graphic novel is a compilation of graphics and text structured on pages at the length of a novel. How long are graphic novels? Anywhere from 100-500 plus pages. The difference between a graphic novel and a novel is that the graphic novel has graphics (images). The difference between a graphic novel vs comic book is the length. Graphic novels text features are different than a novel just like nonfiction text features. The 5 characteristics of a graphic novel are: shapes, perspective of frame, angles, structure, and layout. Lesson for how to read a graphic novel click HERE

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There are different types of graphic novels just like there are novels with different genres. Some popular graphic novel examples are: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, New Kid by Jerry Craft, American Born Chinese by Gene Luan Yang, The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank, Edgar Allen Poe graphic short stories. Graphic novel books are a great way to engage students who are not particularly interested in reading, or students with special needs; however, anyone and every age group can read and enjoy graphic novels.

There are arguments against graphic novels. However, I have found that I can refute those arguments. The main argument is that students are not able to use their imagination to picture characters and setting. However, there are activities that can be supplemented to fulfill this standard. For example, providing text for a scene in a graphic novel and having students create an image of the scene based on text description. Another argument is that the length of words is to short in the graphic novel. However, Students can read more graphic novels, which beats the alternative of not reading at all.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Graphic Novel Basics

How do graphic novels work? When teaching a graphic novel, it is essential to teach students the basics. I pass out a graphic organizer and use a PowerPoint to go over the 5 characteristics of graphic novels

Characteristics of Graphic Novels

The first out of the 5 Characteristics of Graphic Novels is:

Basic Shapes

1. Basic Shapes

Vertical=signals strength

Horizontal=a calm and stable atmosphere

Circles=signal unity

Movement Triangle=a stable and unified atmosphere

Whole Diagonals=signal action

The second of the 5 characteristics of graphic novels is:

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Perspectives of Frame

2. Perspectives of Frame

Close ups=establish an emotional relationship between the viewer (you) and represented subjects or characters

Medium Shot=establishes objective (without judgment) relationship between viewer (you) and represented characters or subjects.

Long shot=a long shot establishes a relationship between represented figures or characters and surrounding environment

Below is a long shot from the graphic novel, “New Kid” (Full lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers) by Jerry Craft. What is being represented is students on campus having various conversations. This perspective allows the reader (you) a glimpse into the characters and their perspective relationships. The subject in this particular scene are students speaking about the various vacations they took over the holiday break.

Examples of graphic novels: “New Kid” by Jerry Craft

The 3rd of the 5 characteristics of graphic novels is angles:

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Angles

3. Angles

Vertical Angle=situates the reader (you) and the subject/character on an equal level.

Low angle=situates represented subjects or characters in position of power. Imagine being down low, looking up high.

High angle=situates the reader in a position of power, omniscient view-point. Imagine being up high looking down as we are in the image above. We are situated as the “all-knowing” figure to what is happening on campus.

The 4th out of 5 characteristics of graphic novels is:

Lunch Box Notes Emojis for Boys and Girls by Teacher for Inclusion (teacherspayteachers.com)

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Structure

4. Structure

Left-Right Structure

Given=information that is known to the reader, and taken for granted or not given much thought. An example would be the main character in “Smile” having braces in her mouth. This is not a surprise because we/the audience accompanied her to the dentist.

New=information that is previously unknown to the reader and therefore catches the readers attention. For example, when George Takei’s family is picked up by the American police and placed in a concentration camp in, “They Called US Enemy”. This would be new information in the book.

The 5th out of 5 characteristics of graphic novels is

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Layout

5. Layout

Layout Panel:

A distinct segment of the comic, containing a combination of image and text in variety. Most graphic novels have consistent panels with mixed-in-single panels.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Panels

Panels: offer a different experience than simply reading text:

-The spatial arrangement allows an immediate juxtaposition of the present and the past. On one page we can see a character thinking about the past while being in the present, and looking forward to the future.

-Unlike other- visual media, transitions are instant and direct, but the exact timing of the reader’s experience is determined by focus and reading speed. In the traditional novel we have foreshadowing and hints of what is to come in the future, whereas in a graphic novel, at times we can see what is coming right around the corner, even when a character cannot. This is really helpful for struggling or young readers.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Frames

Frame:

The lines and borders that contain the panels; akin to a picture frame that lines around a picture.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Gutter

Gutter:

The space between framed panels. The thin space that separates the frame or metal from the actual picture. In the case of an actual picture, this would be the cardboard space.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Bleed

Bleed:

An image that extends to and/or beyond the edge of the page, this can include a single image on one page.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Foreground

Foreground:

The panel closest to the viewer. The author may structure the foreground in relation to importance of what he wants the audience to focus on. The background may contain the small details, less important to the plot.

Below: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Note: the clever way the author separates the main character from the panel on the right to the panel on the left. The author also notes that we won’t be able to recognize her although all characters look the same. At-this-time in the novel everything is orderly, at peace-hence the straight lines and perfect panels, gutters, frames, etc. Also note that the panel on the left would be considered the foreground-it is closest to the reader because it is slightly larger than the other images.

Examples of Graphic Novels: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Midground

Midground:

Allows centering of image by using a natural resting place for the reader’s vision. The artist deliberately decides to place the image where a viewer would be most likely to look first. Placing an image off-center or near the top or bottom can be used to create visual tension but using the midground permits the artist to create a more readily accepted image.

Below-“American Born Chinese” (Full lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers) by Gene Luan Yang: Note- the hand is placed at the top, slightly off-centered to the right. The coloring is also brighter in lighter tones than the rest of the images on the page. In the novel there is an emphasis of power by the wizard to the monkey, which is noted on the face of the monkey.

Examples of graphic novels: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Background

Background:

Provides additional, sub-textual information for the reader. For example the way characters may be described by how they look in the background. A class-clown wearing a hat sideways, a unique character holding a dummy, etc.

Characteristics of Graphic Novels: Graphic Weight

Graphic weight:

A term that describes the way some images draw the eye more than others, creating a definite focus using color and shading in various ways including: The use of light and dark shades; dark-toned images or high-contrast images draw the eye more than light or low-contrast images do. Colors that are more brilliant or deeper than others on the page.

Figures Faces

Figures Faces:

Faces can be portrayed in different ways. Some depict an actual person, like a portrait; others are iconic, which means they are representative of an idea or a group of people. Other points to observe about faces include: They can be dramatic when placed against a detailed backdrop; a bright white face stands out. They can be drawn without much expression or detail; this is called an “open blank” and it invites the audience to imagine what the character is feeling without telling them.

The Diary of Anne Frank: (Full lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers). This is a particularly dreary image of the sister of Anne Frank being taken to Auschwitz by train. Note the fire on top, and fire and smoke ahead. What makes it quite dramatic is her white face and how it glows in the backdrop of the firey hell that is to come. Even from a distance you can see the terror in her eyes and on her face.

Examples of Graphic Novels: Anne Frank’s Diary

Hands/Feet

Hands/Feet:

The positioning of hands and feet can be used to express what is happening in the story.

Examples:

–Hands that are raised with palms out suggest surprise or confusion.

–The wringing of hands suggests obsequiousness or discomfort, or confusion.

-Hands over the mouth depict fear, shame, shyness or surprise.

–Turned in feet may denote embarrassment-think Goofy in most pictures.

–Feet with motion strokes can create the sense of panic, urgency, or speed, example, Speedy Gonzalez.

“New Kid” by Jerry Craft: in this image the author uses a malapropism of a movie, as a light-hearted way to introduce each chapter. Note the character on the right. She is floating which is an indicator of her as a very flakey, unique, really out there character. She also has one palm up and open facing upward which suggests surprise. Meanwhile her puppet which makes her a “weird” student on campus lies heavily and exaggerated on her left hand. A student that is considered “cool” and collected, has his feet firmly planted on the ground with hands in fists.

Text Captions

Text Captions:

These are boxes containing a variety of text elements, including scene setting, description, etc.

Speech Balloons

Speech balloons:

These enclose dialogue and come from a specific speaker’s mouth; they vary in size, shape, and layout and can alternate to depict a conversation.

Types of speech balloons: External dialogue, which is speech between characters Internal dialogue, which is a thought enclosed by a balloon that has a series of dots or bubbles going up to it

Special-effects Lettering

Special-effects lettering:

This is a method of drawing attention to text; it often highlights onomatopoeia and reinforces the impact of words such as bang or wow.

“The Cask of Amontillado” (Full lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers) by Edgar Allen Poe emphasizes the cough of Fortunado by use of onomatopoeia in the bottom right corner. That is quite a cough and alerts us to two things: his health is vulnerable, his willingness to seek out the amontillado coupled with arrogance turns out to be his hamartia in the end.

How Do Graphic Novels Work: Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe

By teaching some basics: basics of shapes, perspectives of frames, angles, hands and faces, structure, layout panels, and text captions, students and teachers alike can effectively complete a graphic novel unit. If you teach students and teachers, the basics the graphic novel experience can be a great one!

I would love to hear about your favorite graphic novels! I’m always looking for the next graphic novel read. Please share in the comments below! To learn more specifics about the popular graphic novels mentioned above check out my blog on the top 15 teen reads.

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January 11, 2021

Middle School Books You Don’t Want to Miss!

5 Top Middle School Books

5 Top Middle School Reads are novels that students couldn’t detach from even after we finished reading them. Before I go over this list, I have some advice for how to engage students in reading. This is going to be a bit unconventional-but it works. When you are about to read a book to students, have students gather around the classroom in a circle-campfire style (no books, no notes). Now, in your best storytelling voice, tell students the story of the book. Tell the story well, or not at all. Allow students to ask as many questions and answer their questions with enthusiasm.

5 Top Middle School Books: We Punish Students

Think about it. We punish our students with novels by assigning reading quickly followed by gauging them with questions, underlining, analyzing etc. Imagine the level of engagement from the start if you could tell the story of lets say, “Lord of the Flies”-a book that doesn’t gain engagement until Simon dies. We seem to think that students are going to have the same experience we did, BUT we are English teachers and they are bored. Telling a story (without expectations) is exciting, and students are pumped after. Then move into close reading of a short passage or read longer more engaging scenes. The first objective is for students to read. Set it up in such a way that allows for that to happen with ease. And let go of the idea that students must read everything-They really don’t need to!

5 Top Middle School Books

It’s difficult to find engaging books for middle school students, because they have grown out of elementary school topics, but aren’t quite ready for high school topics. Plus, middle school teachers are requested, candidly, to stay away from high school books. 5 top middle school books are: “Ghost Boys”, by Jewell Parker Rhodes; “Hey Kiddo”, by Jarrett Kraskosca; “New Kid” by Jerry Craft; “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater; and “Rebound” by Kwame Alexander.

“Ghost Boys” by Jewell Parker Rhodes

“Ghost Boys” has one of the most powerful openings I have ever read in a book-and that was all it took to hook myself and my students.

“How small I look. Laid out flat, my stomach touching ground. My right knee bent and my brand-new Nikes stained with blood.

I stoop and stare at my face, my right cheek flattened on concrete. My eyes are wide open. My mouth too.

I’m dead.

I thought I was bigger. Tough. But I’m just a bit of nothing.

My arms are outstretched like I was trying to fly like Superman.

I’d barely turned, sprinting, Pow, pow. Two bullets. Legs gave way. I fell flat. Hard.

I hit snowy ground” (Rhodes 1).

POWERFUL! RIGHT? The novel includes all topics that middle school students deal with such as: bullying, diversity, adversity, death, racism in the US, and friendship. The book is about a young boy whose life is cut short by a police officer. This story is different in that there is healing in the book rather than just revenge, or a lack of justice. Jerome the boy who was murdered becomes friends with Sarah, the police officer’s (who killed him) daughter.

It’s also important to talk about generalizations, and as a class we make a commitment not to generalize. Having said that, we do not ignore the fact that African American males are killed in high numbers, and we look at examples in the distant and near past. Lesson suggestion. Watch Vinson’s “I Pledge Allegiance” poetry slam on YouTube and have students have a class discussion about whether-or-not athletes should be forced to say the pledge of allegiance.

Top Middle School Books: The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

“The 57 Bus” also has one of the most engaging openings I have read in a book. “In a moment everything will be set in motion. Taken by ambulance to a San Francisco burn unit, Sasha will spend the next three and a half weeks undergoing multiple surgeries to treat second and third degree burns running from calf to thigh. Arrested at school the following day, Richard will be charged with two felonies, each with a hate-crime clause that will add time to his sentence if he is convicted…But none of that has happened yet. For now, both teenagers are just taking the bus home from school. Surely, it’s not too late to stop things from going wrong. There must be some way to wake Sasha. Divert Richard. Get the driver to stop the bus. There must be something you can do.” Sasha considers themself agender; neither female nor male, or both female and male. Sasha wore a kilt to school most days and it was lit on fire by Richard, who did not intend for it to light up the way that it did. Sasha went to private school and Richard to a public school in a dangerous neighborhood in Oakland. Richard had been in trouble before and worked hard to stay out of trouble now. What started as a prank turned into a felony hate crime. The controversy in the case is that the judge chose to try Richard as an adult, and added a hate crime clause to the charge. People felt that Richard should be charged for the crime as a minor and that it did not meet the criteria of a hate crime. Lesson suggestion: Use a newspaper article about this true story as the centerpiece of a lesson. Ask questions, have a class discussion.

Hey Kiddo by Jarret Krosoczka

Reasons to read Hey Kiddo: 1. It’s a graphic novel and middle school students love graphic novels, 2. A coming-of-age book so students relate to it, 3. The book is about healing and our world could use more healing. A young boy who has to live with his grandparents because his mom is a heroine addict. The book looks at addicts through a different-more compassionate lens, and at those who are hurt by addiction. The book also has some awesome allusions such as “Wayne’s World”, “This is your brain on drugs”, and Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No To Drugs” campaign. It is beneficial to teach the basic elements of a graphic novel and talk about shapes, and the colors the author chooses to use in the book. The best part is that although the boy’s mom eventually dies young, the main character turns out to be the actual author of the book: a successful, graphic novel author and artist. It’s fascinating how the book takes a look at the family history which helps to give some context as to why Ja’s mom ended up as an addict. There’s one line in the entire book that is very telling. It discusses how Ja’s grandma had a miscarriage and it states, “it threw her”. In the book she sits slouching, in the dark at a table smoking while she set the kids in front of the tv to keep them busy. It foreshadows how Ja’s grandmother had a lack of coping skills, why his mom may not have gotten the attention and love that she needed, and how she may have ultimately ended up using drugs. This is a mature and essential revelation for teenagers. Lesson suggestion: Do a ‘Just Say No” to drugs campaign and choose different images, commercials, and slogans for today.

New Kid by Jerry Craft

“New Kid” another graphic novel, yet much lighter than “Hey Kiddo” is a student and teacher favorite. It’s about a boy in a new-private-middle school who deals with many of the issues that students deal with in middle school: bullying, fitting in, relationships, friendships, puberty, and racism. What I really like about this book is that the themes just mentioned make an impact on students without bringing them down. What I mean by this is that there is teasing and unkind words exchanged between classmates, but there isn’t a degree of bullying that students have to eat their lunch standing on a toilet, (like there is in other books (Ghost Boys)).

The main character, Jordan goes to an almost all-white-student body school as an African American, and he deals with students and teachers making comments such as, “I bet you’d be good at basketball”, followed with “I didn’t mean that because, well, you know”. Other than these frustrations the book is light-hearted, each chapter is a malapropism for a movie, and portrays the average middle school student’s day-to-day life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s important to first begin by teaching students how to read a graphic novel: thought bubbles, gutters, panels, etc. prior to reading a graphic novel. Some ideas during teaching is to cut out a scene, mix them up, and have students decide how to put them in order. You can delete dialogue from circles, and have students predict based on the images, what is being said. Lesson suggestion; I have heard teachers talk about how students are not able to practice critical thinking by imagining up a scene in a graphic novel. You can give the students the dialogue and have them draw what they imagine the scene to be.

Rebound by Kwame Alexander

The last of the top 5 middle school reads is “Rebound” by Kwame Alexander-a brilliant author and poet! It’s a new and different way to read a novel in that it is multiple poems strung together through the duration of an entire novel. It’s a bit like a string of dreams, or memories. Kwame is a master at writing and uses multiple literary devices on each page. He shapes his poetry to match the topic of a poem, and he engages middle school students in ways that most poetry cannot. The main character, Charlie, in “Rebound” is dealing with a lot. He has to deal with the loss of his father as well as puberty and all that it entails for a boy in middle school. Charlie is struggling to get along with his mom, who doesn’t seem to relate to him on any level. The person who can is gone-Charlie’s father and Charlie misses him deeply. After Charlie gets into trouble a couple times, his mom decides to send him to his grandparents for the summer. Charlie is unhappy about it, but it seems to be what he needs to get his smile and his confidence back. It’s a coming-of-age book that includes: family, friends, death, and sports: exactly what he needs after his painful loss. Lesson suggestion: take one poem and have students turn it into the parts of a short story: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

I believe if you try these books in the classroom you will find as much success as I did. For a full lesson to these titles, look up the following: “Rebound” by Kwame Alexander, “Hey Kiddo” by Jarrett Krosoczka, “New Kid” by Jerry Craft, “Ghost Boys” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater.

January 4, 2021

5 Steps To Teach Poetry To High School Students You Need to Know!

5 Steps to Teach Poetry https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Poetry-Presentation-Project-6391474 Product on Teachers Pay Teachers

5 Steps to teach poetry to high school students that work! For Real!

Presentation about Poetry

5 Steps to teach poetry to high school students is more simple than you would think. Do you know the familiar sigh of students when they first hear the words, “we are learning about poetry today?” Typical teacher response, “When we are done with this unit, you will love poetry”. Now when I say this, I know they really will. I will teach you 5 steps to teach poetry to high school students that will lead your students to love poetry too. If you have had similar experiences and are looking for some strategies to make poetry fun, I have 5 steps that work when it comes to teaching poetry to high school students after many years of trial and error. Below are 5 steps to teach poetry to high school students that really work! For the full lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers click https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/IB-Assignment-Poetry-Presentation-6391474

1. Step 1 Out of 5 Ways to Teach Poetry: Start With Simple Grammar

I’m telling you, this really works!

Are you supposed to pause at the end of a line of poetry? The answer is no. Not without a period, comma, or other punctuation mark that signals for it. I begin by teaching students not to pause at the end of every line. Students see the end of a line and they automatically think they need to pause: making the simplest of poems near impossible to understand. In fact, many teachers do the same. I teach students to pause when they see the comma, the hyphen, semicolon, colon and the period. Easy enough, right? This solves most of the struggle students have understanding poetry. Once students practice this skill, the rest is simple.

I review a few more easy grammar rules that they already know, and next I give them the rules for how to read their poems aloud.

How to read your poem aloud 1. Read in thought groups, not just ends of lines 2. Read loudly enough, changing your volume as needed for the thought groups and punctuation 3. Vary your rate (how fast, slow you go; emphasis) 4. Pay attention to punctuation—it signals meaning:

Period = stop, Exclamation = emotion, Question =upward inflection, Comma or dash =pause, Parenthesis =lowered voice, White space =keep going…or, pause, Capitalization =important, Colon =set up what is coming

2. Step 2 out of 5 Ways To Teach Poetry: Model Reading the Poem

I model by reading a poem and ask them to note how the punctuation signals what I do with my voice. I use a poem that is fun and entertaining to them such as “The Egg Horror Poem” by Laurel Winter, or “Incident in a Rose Garden” by Donald Justice. I then pass out different poems while students are in small groups and students practice reading poems to each other. Once they have practiced, one student per group reads their poem out loud to the rest of the class.

3. Step 3 Out of 5 Ways to Teach Poetry: Provide Students With Engaging Poems

It’s important to provide students with poems they will connect to. The poem I read, “Egg Horror Poem” is about terrified eggs huddling together in a dark refrigerator just waiting in agonizing anticipation for the refrigerator door to open as one of them is whisked away to their death to be mixed in an omelette. In order for real engagement and learning to happen it is essential to pass out a long list of poems to choose from, allowing students time to go through and decide which poem they want to present to the class.

A list of poems that students love:

“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe,

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost,

“Incident in a Rose Garden, by Donald Justice

“Death” by William Butler Yeats

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke

“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden

“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare

“The Gift” by Li Young Lee

“The Rose that Grew from Concrete” by Tupac Shakur

“Egg Horror Poem”, by Laurel Winter

“400 Meter Free Style” by Maxine Kumin

“Grape Sherbet” by Rita Dove

“Ode to My Socks” by Pablo Neruda

“The Seven Ages of Man” by William Shakespeare

“’Hope’ is a Thing With Feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“For Poets” by Al Young

“A Voice” by Pat Mora

“Rosa” by Rita Dove

“from Mauda Martha” by Gwendolyn Brooks

“Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou

“The Sharks” by Denise Levertov

“The Sun” by Mary Oliver

“My Father’s Song” by Simon Ortiz

“Oh What is That Sound” by W.H. Auden

“My Heart Leaps Up” by William Wordsworth

“Elegy for Giant Tortoises” by Margaret Atwood

“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Tennyson

“Spring is Like a Perhaps Hand” by E.E. Cummings

Poetry Presentations Product on Teachers Pay Teachers https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Poetry-Presentation-Project-6391474

4. Step 4 Out of 5 Ways to Teach Poetry: Allow Choice and Give Challenging Assignment

Students choose and sign up for their poetry presentation. The first task in the presentations is to read the poem aloud-correctly. Second to analyze the different parts of the poem using a clear prompt and a rubric.

The analysis will begin with, source, name of poem, poet, number of lines and will also include:

•List the pluses (what’s good about it) and minuses (what’s not-so-good about it)

•Questions (about things you don’t understand, about things you do understand but are still thinking-about, about the value of the ideas and images and so forth, about…whatever)

•Personal Connections—why you chose the poem, what matters, where is that link that spoke to you, what’s going on in the poem, why did the poet do this or that…and so forth.

•Word choice—three areas here, so complete each one

•Two words I looked up and why

•Two words I think are important to the literal (denotative) meaning of the poem

•Two words I think are important to the bigger (connotative) meaning of the poem

•Structure—how is the poem organized

•Thought groupings and their role

•Punctuation and its role

•Significant pauses and their role

•Literary features and their effect (metaphors, similes, alliteration, allusions, personification, repetition etc.)

•Beginning as compared to the end and their effect

5. Step 5: Have Students Create something

The final step is having them create something that captures the “essence” of their poem. Students will paint, draw, sing, play an instrument, perform a puppet show, bake, bring in a song, sculpture, perform a mini-readers theater create a graph and more. I have had a student come in and perform a belly dance, another crank out a heavy metal song on his electric guitar, a student graph out whether or not Odysseus is a hero, and many more talented creations. This is my most favorite time of the year because they are so creative and students make a huge effort in their performance. This lesson brings the class closer together as they learn about each others similarities and differences.

*Bonus

*Bonus: This is a great lesson for the start of the year so you learn all those details about your students in the beginning that you usually learn in sprinkles throughout the year.

As an assessment you can give students a poem with a list of literary devices (repetition, personification, imagery, allusions, figurative language, diction, symbolism, etc.), and have them write-up a poetry analysis. I find my students are successfully able to perform this task, once they have completed their poetry presentation.

In this blog post we covered the following 5 steps to teach poetry to high school students:

Start with a simple grammar review
Model reading a poem
Provide poem choices students can connect to
Allow students to choose a poem to present
Have students create a project that captures the essence of their poem.

Follow these 5 steps to teach poetry to high school students and you too, will find success!

How do you teach poetry? I would love to hear back in the comments below. If you enjoyed this blog post check out my https://wordpress.com/post/teacher-for-inclusion.com/367 blog post on graphic novels