Ch. 4 and Invitations

Ch. 4- Personally, I really enjoy poetry so I found this chapter to be somewhat interesting and helpful. It gives great examples of how to get students engaged in writing and sharing their personal experiences. Many students are bashful when it comes to this but incorporating small and fun activities such as "I am" poems and acrostic introductions can really get the ball rolling. I also really enjoyed the six-room poem structure. I feel like this is a great way to really get students writing poetry on a whole new level. Seeing these examples, I have some great ideas about how I can incorporate poetry in my classroom and help students enrich their Multigenre Research Papers. Having said this, I do still want to know how to get students to think and write on a deeper, more meaningful level. This chapter just showed how to get students to start writing; I want to know more about evoking deeper reflection and introspect once they become writers of poetry.

Invitations- I really like the idea of invitations because they can be used at any time. Invitations can be used for any subject as well. Having said this, every article I have ever read on invitations has been slightly vague. There are never any really good examples to really show they inner workings of a good invitation. Regardless, I do like the idea of them. Having invitation folders set in specific spots in the room is a great idea. Instead of simply sitting around and wasting time, students can be gaining a better knowledge on relevant topics to the class curriculum. I think the group discussions that were mentioned are extremely important because it is the group interaction and involvement that really gives invitations their significance. Through these interactions, students learn from each other and constantly raise new questions and concerns based off each others answers; collaborative learning is an amazing tool for any teacher to utilize in the classroom. Lastly, I'm still somewhat hazy on the best times to do invitations. Because they can be about anything and at any time, when is the best time to incorporate them into the classroom?