Poetry at the Heart

By Sharon Daly

How does the writing of poetry allow us to find a window into the heart of a gifted writer? Through the many years that I have been teaching students at the elementary school that are identified as advanced readers, it has struck me how often their poetry connects with their strengths. Their poems demonstrate a flexibility of thinking that always stands out when compared to age-level peers. Their voice is authentic and often throws a spotlight on their sensitivity to the world as well as the depth of their thinking and analysis. The poems they have created reveal their advanced facility with language. This is evident in their word choice and use of figurative language and imagery.

Thinking about this raises a few questions for me. If a poem can help identify students who are advanced in their thinking and written expression, how might this be communicated to teachers who often do not infuse poetry into their lessons due to lack of time or interest? How might poetry be a doorway into other kinds of writing for students? Could poetry be a basis for launching into non fiction pieces, argumentative writing, short stories, etc?

Usually I have students write poems as a culminating activity at the end of a novel or unit as a way of synthesizing what they have learned and expressing their understanding in a creative way. This has yielded poems such as these two, written by 5th graders after reading the novel Rascal.

Herschel’s Uniform

The war is over!

Hooray they say

but little know,

the real price our soldiers paid

While some lost a limb,

others lost their life

and even a lost friend

could be the most piercing knife

Even the survivors lost,

along with the side that won

because still after the war,

the pain is not done

Something changed them you see,

Before they didn’t hide from shadows,

or whimper in the night,

or scream at the sound of thunder

or jump at a flicker of a light

So I may just be a uniform

in a museum in Wisconsin

but I tell the tale of

some of the bravest people in the world

Kaylee F.

Uniform

I am a piece of horror

I try to forget my past

but it’s almost always there

I can feel the boom of weapons

hear the cry of the innocent

and see the hunger of war

as it hypnotizes soldiers

ruling them with rage

Then death falls over no man’s land

picking its victims in the trench

We saw things we should have never seen

We made it out alive

Here I am “celebrating” my victory

in a glass case, with these memories

thundering in my head as I slowly

wither into faded existence

but until then

I am here

Kyla T.

What other types of writing could be launched from poems like these? A non-fiction research piece about trench warfare, a first-person fictional narrative from the perspective of a soldier in the trenches (with the student conducting research about a particular battle), an argumentative piece about the nature of war, an annotated map of a battlefield?

In order for students to produce effective poetry on a particular subject of study, they have to build background knowledge through reading, research and discussion. Would they be willing to take what they know in order to produce poems like the examples shown and develop additional writing around topics? How could these pieces then be used to assess them, rather than sole reliance on an objective test with multiple choice or fill in the blank responses? For many of the students that I work with, the ceiling for assessment is much too low, and does not reflect their true abilities.

As I continue thinking about the direction I will take for research on the topic of writing assessment for advanced learners, all roads seem to lead me toward the destination of poetry!