Multiple Intelligences and Poetry Response

How we respond to reading is deeply personal. Although the author has a specific message he or she wants to convey, different people will receive that message in different ways. Our personal experiences shape how we understand and appreciate what we read, and no two people will read the same text in the same way. We also express ourselves in different ways when we respond to the world around us.

For my poetry unit, based on the anthology I Am the Darker Brother, I wanted my students’ responses to the poems to reflect that diversity, in reading and in response. I designed a project where they chose which poem(s) to respond to, what in the poems to respond to, and how they could to respond. I also wanted to honor the fact that some students do best when they have lots of small tasks, while others prefer a longer-term project. Building on our advisory curriculum of multiple intelligences, I made sure the various response choices would allow them to use different strengths. The final product was the compilation of response activities.

On the day the responses were due, I told my classes that this was a new project and I wanted their feedback so I could make it better for next year. The students appreciated getting to make choices and having a chance to incorporate their outside interests into a class assignment.

Here’s the assignment. The most popular choices were “poetry for dinner,” the artistic interpretation, and the remix. The only ones no one did were the skit performance and the choreography. Maybe next year!