Student+Audience

The Crawfordsville Community School Corporation has 2,359 students housed in 3 primary schools (K-1, 2-3, and 4-5), a middle school (6-8) and a high school (9-12). Crawfordsville, the county seat of Montgomery County, is located 45 minutes west of Indianapolis off of I-74 and has a population of over 15,000 residents. It is home to Wabash College, a small all-male liberal arts college, but it has a mixed socio-economic status with manufacturing being the main source of employment.

The students that will be involved in these lessons are 6th and 8th graders at Tuttle Middle School. Our building has an enrollment this year of 505 students – 164 6th graders, 174 7th graders, and 167 8th graders. Of this number, 429 students (85%) identify themselves as white. Eight percent (42 students) are Hispanic and 4% (22 students) are multiracial. The balance of the enrollment is 1% (8 students) African American and less than 1% each of American Indian (4 students) and Asian (4 students). 40% of our students receive free lunch (202 students) and an additional 10% receive reduced lunch rates (51 students). Our ISTEP scores for math and L. Arts have ranged from slightly below to slightly above the state average for the past ten years.

Sixth grade students are familiar with poetry in general. They enjoy listening to it and appreciate it as a literary form of emotional expression. They know the definitions of and can recognize and create examples of some of the literary devices. (simile, metaphor) They have heard of the various forms of poetry but would not be able to define the characteristics or purposes.

The seventh grade does a poetry unit, so they've had an added year of exposure to literary devices. They also study limericks, concrete poetry, and ballads. However, poetry isn't as "cool" in 8th grade- especially to the boys, so motivitation will be key. To get them interested, I would use music lyrics as a springboard/hook. (Example - Melissa Ethridge's "Scarecrow" or other music with a social comment)

For several years we were an Anytime, Anywhere laptop school; every student had their own laptop to use at school and at home. Even though the grant money dried up and we no longer have 500+ laptops available, we still have eight carts of thirty that are checked out to classrooms, and teachers still incorporate technology into their curriculum. So our students are familiar with MicroSoft computer programs. At this point most of our middle school students are not fluent in information literacy. They will need assistance in accessing, managing, evaluating, and communicating information.

Connections to the real world - In order to discuss poetry one needs to know forms of poetry and to have a common vocabulary. Students will be expected to have this knowledge for both high school and college courses. The higher level thinking skills used for poetry analysis can be applied to any situation in which meaning needs to be made. Like music, its cousin, poetry is a vehicle of personal expression that can be enjoyed by all - whether from reading or creating.