What do you picture when you hear the word ‘poetry’? At the beginning of this unit, I didn’t like poetry. It made no sense to me! But, by the end of this unit, I was starting to understand it and appreciate it better. I worked with a group and we presented a collection of poems about one topic— addiction. This is our presentation. 

Addiction Through Poetry Presentation

Before we could do that, however, we had to learn a bit about poetry. We started by reading a couple of poems about the same topic and comparing and contrasting them. Then, we moved on to poetry terms.

Everyone in the class was randomly assigned two poetry terms, and our task was to define them and give an example of the poetic term. We put this information onto posters that we designed. The terms that I was assigned were Metaphors and Hyperbole, and I’m pretty proud of my posters. 

Once we understood poetic terms, we did a few things. We read several love poems, and considered how poetry has changed over time. 

Then, we were divided into groups. I worked with Amelia R, Lennart, and Gabby, to create this presentation. Each group chose a different topic of poetry. We had to find several poems to read, and write one poem ourselves. Our group chose the topic of Addiction. This was a fairly hard topic to research and find poems about, but we were able to find some very meaningful poems, from a long time range. The poem that I read was written in 1966! 

The other task of this project, which I enjoyed the most, was writing the poem! I worked with Gabby to write the first poem in our presentation, simply called ‘Addiction’. When we started this unit, I thought poetry was boring, but writing this poem is what changed my mind. I really enjoyed coming up with the rhyme scheme, and finding the perfect words made me feel really accomplished. 

When it was time to present the poems we’d compiled, we encountered some challenges. First, our presentation was pretty, but some of the images were blurry or made no sense. We had to work hard to find non-copyrighted images that would convey our points clearly. Next, our costumes were lacking. We wanted to wear all-black, so the seriousness of the topic would show, but it was also important (as per the terms of the assignment) to have interesting costumes and/or props. We decided that each of us would wear a few accessories in the colours of the rainbow, to signify that while Addiction is a serious topic, it can get better. This was represented in Lennart’s poem, Sunshine After the Rain. And as you know, sunshine and rain make a rainbow! 

Lastly, we had to present! We held an open-invitation poetry presentation, for any parents who wanted to see us present. It was stressful, but our presentation was well-rehearsed and I’m proud of how we did!

Since the beginning of this unit, I have grown to appreciate poetry more. I hope you do too! 

Thanks for reading my blog post!