Best Assignment of 2011

Who would have thunk it, but a little poetry assignment has turned out to be one of my most effective and engaging assignments of the entire year.

We have been studying poetry.  Right now we've been studying the language of poetry.  We began with "Out, out--" and then read "The Road Not Taken" and "The Ex-basketball player."  We've been analyzing personification, rhyme scheme, alliteration . . . all that stuff.

One thing I've done to emphasize rhyme scheme and imagery is to chop up Frost's "Stopping by Woods" line by line and then putting the 16 lines into envelopes, sealing them up, putting students in groups, and then telling them to use rhyme scheme and imagery to try and re-assemble the poem.

In the past it has been just okay.  People actually just tried to piece it back together (this time I actually took great pains to make sure they couldn't do that).  Amazingly, know one thought to google the poem on their phones.

The entire class is engaged and working and discussing . . . even students who never buy in to what we are doing.

So I do what I do best - I am getting the hell out of their way and hoping it lasts!