Poetry Beyond the Podium

Celebrating poetry in the Middle School is not limited to the poems our students select for the MacLane Recitation. In class we experiment with different poetic forms and devices. Recently we wove our poetry lessons into what the 6th Grade students are learning about earthquakes in science and math. They applied their knowledge of such poetic devices as onomatopoeia, alliteration, personification, and similes into a pantoum, a Malaysian poem that began as an oral folk form with a repeating line formula.

In her pantoum Cat included both personification and a simile with the line, “The ground screams and shouts like an unhappy baby who didn’t get what he wanted.” Maggie and Ava employed alliteration with their lines, “Flags flutter and flap,” and “Sumatran seismic shaking rattles the earth.” Jackson demonstrated his understanding of a simile, “The ground starts shaking again like a wet dog - the ceiling collapses,” and Tristan used personification and onomatopoeia, “My heart was doing jumping jacks inside my chest/Rumble, Rumble/Then realization hit me.” Bringing core classes together – be it through either a STEAM project or an interdisciplinary unit – makes lessons come alive for our students. They discover the interconnectedness of their learning.

In English we read poetry by accomplished poets such as Emily Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, and Robert Frost, using their words to teach the children about denotation and connotation, imagery, and symbolism. Yesterday’s lesson focused on symbolism. The children read Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” They tapped into their prior knowledge of symbols from their past year’s Egyptian studies and most recently their reading of the epic Gilgamesh.

“What is this poem all about?” I asked the children. “Is it really about someone walking in the woods?” We talked about moving beyond the literal level, and the students shared that, to them, this poem is about making decisions. I concluded the class by having them write about how they themselves have taken the road less traveled and how it has made all the difference. In an unsolicited tribute to The Country School, 6th Grader Kayla wrote, “I took the road less traveled when I switched to private school. It made all the difference because I became more involved and had more challenges here in school. In my old school, the teachers focused on the group as a whole, and we were only as smart as the slowest learner, so I was held back. At TCS the teachers focus on everyone individually, and I am able to grow and expand my knowledge. Even though I lost friends from from my old school, I have made so many more at TCS!”

The best part? Kayla is absolutely correct! At TCS, we teachers pride ourselves on individualized attention and stretching out. I believe this deeply as both a teacher and a parent of TCS students.

“The Road Not Taken”

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.