7th Graders Participate in Poetry Workshop Peer Conference with 3rd Graders

North Shore Middle School seventh graders recently visited Sea Cliff Elementary School for a Poetry Workshop Peer Conference. The older students from Jackie Kepke and Megan Corrao’s classes were immediately paired with the third graders in Mrs. Lamberti’s class. Upon arrival, each of the students introduced themselves.  

The partners shared three different poems and talked about what they liked about them. For sentence starters, the students were given some suggestions including “I really like how you...”, “Why did you choose...”, “What do you mean by…”, and “Is there a better way to say…” The seventh graders then wrote down strengths of each of the poems and made recommendations for the third graders' to incorporate into their literary pieces at a later date.

Some important topics that the students engaged in included: Poetic Devices (similes and metaphors), Stanzas, Line breaks, Punctuation, Imagery, Rhyme Scheme, Voice, and Form type (Haiku, Phantoum, and Blues). 

At the end of the poetry conference, everyone gathered together as a group to reflect on the process. Many thanks to the middle school English teachers Jackie Kepke and Megan Corrao, as well as Mrs. Lamberti at Sea Cliff for spearheading such an exciting poetry workshop.

 

Article and photos by Shelly Newman