Response to Readings

I have never been one to enjoy poetry, even from a young age. Since I have not had any interest in poetry, reading Chapter 4 from Literature and the Child provided great difficulties for me. The reading itself was not difficult, it was just hard for me to get into and be interested in what was said. However, I found a similarity to the question that was asked on page 90 "Did you memorize a poem as a child?". I had to memorize many poems not particularly in elementary school, but in the 8th grade, I had to memorize many poems for my Language Arts class. It is interesting because in the text it says that poems do more than just provide a chance for children to laugh or cry, but it helps students remember academic content. I find that it may provide a chance to learn academic content, but when you are memorizing a poem it more so provides a chance for rote learning which through other TE classes I have learned is a very ineffective way to teach a class. Since my interest in poetry does not really exist, I disagreed with the comment that was made by Apol and Harris in their article that states " It would seem natural for children not simply to be comfortable, but to passionately be enthusiastic about poetry". It does not seem natural for me at all to love poetry because I have been shown it from birth. I would agree from all of the examples that Apol and Harris offers to their reader that poetry gives students a chance to express their feelings through a different form of writing. It also does give students the ability to learn about rhythm and rhyming in a more creative manner rather than just reading about the subjects and not actually being able to gain experience. Once again, the comment made about how poetry is like music and how it supposed to make you laugh, cry, and smile proves wrong for me. I absolutely love music and could not imagine music not in my life, but I do not loo at music in the sense that I look at poetry. I understand that rapping is a form of poetry, but I feel that poetry always has an underlying meaning where I can follow rap lyrics and understand what is trying to be said. Finally, in the article written by Gillis focused on "multi-voice" novels which means that more than one narrator tell their stories in the voices of two or more central characters. A perfect example of an adolescent book is the fourth installment of the Twilight Series where Jacob and Bella who are two central characters have separate stories within the novel that are written from their perspective. These stories are alternated throughout the novel and gives you a different inside to a story. It is shown through this article that multi-voiced novesl should be taught with care becuase they are very dificult to read and follow. Books such as Twilight have a set pattern and these voices are not intertwined where the story cannot be followed where as some multi-voiced novels may be in a different structure. When teaching, we should make sure that our students understand who the protagonist, antagonists, settings, linear chronology, and clear beginnings, middles, and ends. I could relate to this article because of the section that is dedicated to "scrapbooks". I love to scrapbook and they are in a way multigenre books becuase they introduce more than a written text. This can be confusing because the meaning of a scrapbook page may only be known to the creator. I agree with the fact that multivoice novels show young readers new ways of writing about their lives and what occurs in the world. It is another way like poetry that students can express themselves through their writing.