Lesson Critique

I read the lesson plan A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry and I was quite impressed. It gave me a feeling of excitement toward creating lesson plans because it showed me that there are original and creative ideas out there to present a topic.

The four session lesson plan implements several standards, which is what makes it a really smart lesson. After the students complete the entire lesson plan, they have gained knowledge and skills in many different areas. I think that it is genius to make one general lesson plan that includes so many standards. Many of the things that the students come away with are ideas and skills that they didn’t even realize they were learning.

The teacher guides the students to exploring what a Found Poem is, and then they slowly work on creating one. I like that the students are actively involved in the learning, as opposed to just accepting information from the teacher. I think that by learning in this way, they are able to understand the idea of Found Poetry most effectively.

I also like that the students work together as a class to create a poem. This gives them a sense of togetherness and importance. Making a performance out of the poem is also a great idea. It makes the students excited and engages them in the activity. If the teacher would just instruct the class to create a poem, it would be way more boring for the students, and they would view poems as a boring assignment. In this way, the teacher makes an exciting and fun activity out of creating a Found Poem. When students are excited about learning, they develop a positive attitude toward learning in general. This definitely improves the level of learning, which is what all teachers want.

As an addition to the lesson, I would allow the students to create any sort of action, motion, or sound to their line. Not all kids are linguistically talented, so this would give students that excel in acting, music, or any creative area to have a great outlet to express themselves.

All in all, this was a really good lesson plan. I look forward to working on creating lesson plans by myself, and studying this one definitely gave me great insight and ideas.