'Found Poetry' Lesson Critique

Composing and Performing Found Poetry Lesson Plan Critique:

Overall, for the found poetry lesson the areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language were covered. Students were required to read a book, write a poem and perform for the class. In this lesson, the teacher did a good job of working towards a gradual release of responsibility with her students. By first reading the story and showing the students the found poem she had created, she was modeling for her students what to do. If I were to do the lesson, one of the changes I would make would be to work on the poem in front of the class so they can see the process actually happening as opposed to just being shown a finished product. For the second session of the lesson, students as a whole class created a found poem. This acted as the shared reading or writing portion of the gradual release. For this part of the lesson, this is not what I would use to evaluate students for the entire lesson. Instead, I would use this as a step into guiding practice. For the next session, I would have students break up into groups to create a found poem based on their book of choice. This gives the students more responsibility and removes the teacher from the equation somewhat. For a final project, students would reach the independent practice stage and create their own found poem from a favorite book.

I had never heard of the found poem, but after reading this lesson it is something I may be interested in using in a future classroom. The nice thing about this type of lesson is that it can be adapted for a variety of ages groups and does a great job of focusing on the gradual release of responsibility.