An important element of this curriculum will be the gradual release of responsibility as students begin to use the visualization strategy. When we first read the poems, I will show the poem in book form or display it digitally for the class to see. Many students will be relying on the oral reading of the poem, but having the words displayed will give students who can read the opportunity to follow along. Each book of poetry that we read will be displayed in the classroom so that students can access and read them during our independent reading time. I want students to have the opportunity to continue to read the poems that we have read in class as well as poems that we may not have had a chance to read and visualize together. Students can take them to read and look at independently or to share with their peers. It is important for children to feel close to the poems that they are reading (13). This allows them to continue to take ownership of the poetry that we are reading during our whole group lessons and to enjoy the process of reading and learning on their own.
The first week of lessons will include instruction about visualization. The definition of visualization that we will work with is: “Drawing pictures in your mind based on what you read.” I will engage students by describing visualization as making mind movies or pictures. Before visualizing, I will read the poem out loud and pick a section of it to focus on. I will model what I am thinking as I read and how that helps me to visualize what is happening in the poem. As I visualize out loud, I will illustrate my visualizations on the board.
Next, I will lead the class in visualizing the same passage together. I will encourage students to create mental pictures as I read. I will prompt students to close their eyes as I read through the text twice. Then I will prompt them to share what images pop into their heads (14). I will then draw their pictures on the board. Many students enjoy closing their eyes and being immersed in the poem. We will repeat the exercise with a different section of the poem. Once again, I will read it through twice. Students will have time to think about their visualizations. They will then turn to a partner to share their visualizations. Finally, I will call the class back together and allow them to share their thinking with the whole group. I will call students to come to the board to illustrate. Part of this process is brainstorming and recording our ideas in drawing and writing to better illustrate our visualizations (15). At the beginning of our use of this protocol we will share visualizations as a whole group so that I can monitor their visualizations and offer feedback. As students grow more fluent in their ability to visualize, I will allow students to discuss more as partners before sharing with the group.
At the end of each class, students will return to their desks where they will have their own copy of the poem printed in a booklet. Having their own copy supports the process of owning the poem and creating their own meaning (16). On one side of the book will be the printed words of the poem that we have read in class and on the other side will be a blank space for the student to illustrate their visualization. This practice is supported as a shared and interactive practice from Fountas and Pinnell (17). Each week, we will read new poems and add illustrations to our books. At the end of the unit, students will have an illustrated poetry object that they can keep.
As we start a new type of poem, I will show them examples of how some authors and illustrators have chosen to illustrate or select objects to match their poems. We will compare our own mind movies to the illustrations and visual representations that other authors and illustrators have selected (18). This will allow students to see others’ visualization while remaining true to their own visualizations. Most students aged five through seven enjoy creating their own drawings and are not overly reliant on what someone else has drawn. I am not concerned about them explicitly copying someone else’s visualization. This will also give us an opportunity to discuss things that may be included in the pictures and not the text (19). Discussion around the pictures will help strengthen students’ visual literacy while encouraging them to expand on their illustrations based on what they visualize. Besides comparing their work to other authors and illustrators, I will share students’ complete visualization illustrations with the group so that they can compare their own ideas to their peers’ (20).
We will follow this same protocol for each poem that we read. As I read the poem out loud, I will clarify and define confusing language and vocabulary. I will also draw attention to language features that are common in poetry, such as alliteration or rhyme. Students are often eager to identify these features, and I will share and celebrate these with the whole group. As we read, I will make the dramatic situation of the poem real through questioning (21). This further engages students in the process of reading the poem. I will also use questioning to allow students to draw meaning from parts of the poems. We will linger over specific parts of the poem to help make them more real. When reading poems with young children, it is not necessary to teach every detail (22). I will also emphasize that they do not have to visualize the whole poem, but they can focus their visualizations on a particular section.
Young readers often have wild imaginations. One difficulty that I foresee for some readers, particularly with reading poetry, is staying on topic when visualizing. For example, when visualizing during a poem about a lizard, a student may instead share about their pet tiger. I will offer feedback to help guide them to make accurate visualizations and to stay on topic. However, it is important to still respond positively even to wrong answers (23). This allows readers to remain active and respected participants in our reading community. I will also encourage as many meanings and visualizations as possible. It is also important not to nail down a single meaning when reading poetry (24).
The four types of poetry that we will look at over the course of four weeks will be silly poems, shape poems, science poems, and poems by Black poets. We will begin the unit of study by studying silly poems to engage students. Each genre will take a week (4 days of instruction) and include 1-3 poems each day depending on the length of poems. This will allow students to look at a variety of poems across types of poems.
The first poetry type that we will look at is silly poems. This includes poems that make students laugh or look at silly or ridiculous topics. The purpose of beginning with this genre of poetry is to engage students and pique their interest in poetry. I want to begin this unit by making children laugh and to think about things that are funny. This is also an opportunity for children’s imaginations to run wild. I want to give all students an access point to poetry regardless of whether they have read it before or not. Poetry can often seem daunting or confusing, and I want to help students enjoy reading poetry. Silly poems also allow for a wider range of visualization interpretations.
The second poetry type that we will look at is shape or concrete poetry. These are poems that are about a specific topic and are written to look like that topic either using a single word or a poem that is in the shape of the topic. We will look at these poems both in their object form as the designed shape and with just the words. This will allow students to think about the poems both as sound and object. Students will be able to guess what these poems are about and to support their predictions with visualizations. We will read the poem as a class in its concrete or shape form, but the version that is printed in their poetry book will be in a standard form.
The third poetry type that we will look at is science poetry. These poems will allow us to make cross-curricular connections between poems and other content areas. I chose science as a focus since we are a STEAM school. One topic of study in first grade science curriculum is space. Students learn about the sun and the moon and how light is reflected. We will read a collection of poems about light and space. Another topic of study in first grade curriculum is animals. Students learn about animals’ habitats, offspring and parents, and predators and prey. We will read poems that focus on animals.
The last poetry type that we will look at are poems by Black poets. We will look at poems written especially for children and great poems that have been adapted into books for children. We will look at poems in isolation as well as in books that have specific artwork chosen for them. I am interested in teaching and exploring with children different published versions of poems. Students will have the opportunity to compare their visualizations with how editors, authors, and illustrators have chosen to represent specific poems. I will select poems that are heavy on imagery that children can understand and that lend to visualization. However, I do want to allow children to be challenged in visualization. This part of the unit will focus on adult poems that children may need more support to understand and interpret. I want to end the unit allowing students to be challenged beyond the surface of visualization.