Poetry in the Real World -- Bridging the Gap!

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I am a seventh grade English Language Arts teacher at I.S 190 in the South Bronx. The school is in a neighborhood where poverty, drugs are gang activity are prevalent, both in and outside of academics. Working at a high-needs school also brings the challenge, among many others, of lacking the necessary materials and resources needed to provide an engaging educational experience for students. For this reason, I turn to the generous participants of Donors Choose for help. I will be teaching a unit on poetry in April for my students. Poetry can be a challenging topic to teach; it can be wordy and difficult to comprehend on multiple levels. Poetry can also be hard to understand if one lacks the prior knowledge or experiences of which the poet writes. For this reason, it is critical to use texts that will interest and invite the reader to explore and want to learn more. I would like to use "Bronx Masquerade" by Nikki Grimes as the primary source of instruction during this unit. "Bronx Masquerade" tells the story of a group of students who resist poetry when their teacher first mentions it, but who slowly and surely let their guard down as they begin to explore their lives and experiences, using poetry to tell their personal stories in ways they never knew possible. As the characters in the book also come from an inner-city neighborhood, I believe that my students will relate to their stories, thus expanding their willingness to engage in lessons while gaining an overall appreciation for poetry. It is my hope that even the strongest "disbeliever" will come to accept that there truly is something in poetry for everyone. For my project to be successful, I will need to have enough copies of "Bronx Masquerade" for each student in my class, so that reading can be accomplished through both independent and group strategies. I am requesting a class set of the book, and an additional teacher copy. In total, I will need at least thirty-five copies of "Bronx Masquerade" to be able to complete the April unit. However, I would be thrilled to have the class set for use during any time of the school year, for I believe my students will benefit from its use.