Poetry Lesson Week 2

S, R, and C's lessons brought up some interesting points through their strikingly different choices in poems. R and C chose to look at silly poems, aimed at middle schoolers. While I think that this was age appropriate, I wonder if these same poems can be used in high school as warm-ups to get the students into the poetry frame of mind, instead of just jumping right into a Whitman poem at 7:30 am. I thought R handled the unexpected well - something I don't feel like we're getting enough practice with while teaching our peers. S did a great job leading discussion on her Hughes poems, though I do question how much students in high school will have to say about poems from the get-go. I think she had a reserve of questions to spark discussion, but I think a little history might have to be ventured into as well to fully appreciate such poems. These lessons, S's and C's in particular, made me question the use of poet/author biographies while teaching. This was brought up to me in my own lesson, is the poet's life/background crucial to the poem? What would it mean if we didn't consider the author's perspective or probable explanation of the poem and solely went off of the words? What are the +/- to having such knowledge before looking at the poem? Does their meaning take precedent over out own? What if the two don't align? It's an issue I'm still torn between.