Writing Golden Shovel Poetry Across the Curriculum
Keywords:
Keywords: content literacy; instructional strategies; writing; methods and materials; literature; teacher education; professional developmentAbstract
This article describes lessons learned from the implementation of an instructional strategy that was conducted with preservice teachers enrolled in an undergraduate literacy course highlighting reading and writing as instructional tools to teach content area material across the curriculum. One requirement in the course was a Poetry Project. This project invited students to explore and use different poetic formats to write and illustrate two different poems across two different content areas. This article focuses specifically on one poetic format, namely, Golden Shovel Poetry (GSP). It describes the origin and purpose of GSP and shares student samples of Golden Shovel poems across four different content areas: English/Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science. It ends with lessons learned from the whole experience and suggested considerations for K-12 teachers who wish to develop their own poetry project in their respective classrooms.
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