New Colossus

In whole group reading, we are loosely following another school district's long range plans and mentor texts.  They did a good job with spiraling and using authentic literature & informational text for the Common Core State Standards.  

We worked on poetry and many students were struggling with identifying theme, looking for figurative language and summarizing stanzas.

So their must do this week involved the poem New Colossus.  I picked this poem because it is challenging and within the 5-6 band of suggested poetry.  

Each day they read the poem independently with a different purpose.  Thursday they compared notes with a neighbor and Friday we talked about it as a class.  

Here are some snap shots of their note taking:

I think they did a great job.  A few figured out the poem was about the Statue of Liberty, but once I revealed that, there were quite a few "a ha!" moments, or as we call them, brain fireworks. 

I then had them reread the poem, this time looking for clues that the poet used to reveal the subject of the poem.

They had a lot of fun with it, so I think I'll make a poetry station where they glue in poems & practice this strategy.  I'll type up a list of what I expect for each read through and have them switch marker colors each time they read.  By doing one marker color per read/per purpose, it holds them accountable to all the steps without them even realizing it :)

Happy reading!