Critique on Lesson Plan

The lesson plan “A Bear of a Poem”, composing found poetry is an excellent lesson plan! Firstly, I like the idea that she incorporates the five key components of ELA in her lesson. She starts off by reading, the students read a book then share their readings. This is very effective since the students get to learn from each other. Then she incorporates writing, after selecting words from the text, students were able to begin to create a poem on their own and share them with others, this brings out cognitive thinking. Then, Carolyn focuses on speaking, language, and listening, she hands out a copy of a poem of found poetry and the students are able to make their poem sound better together.

I like the idea how Carolyn Wilhelm included a lot of student interaction in her lesson. This is very beneficial for the students since they all get to show off their work to the class and their parents which gives them great confidence in their work. Additionally, it’s great for the parents to see how their children are progressing in their reading, writing and public speaking skills.

However, I don’t like the part that her sessions were 50 minutes, I feel that for grade K-2 it should have been a little shorter, so that the kids can be more focused and involved in the lesson. It shouldn’t get to long to the point where the students lose concentration and involvement in the lesson.

All in all, I feel that this lesson makes writing poetry a very fun and exciting experience for all children!