National Poetry Month
Mrs. Valentine's students recently celebrated National Poetry Month with style. These 8th-grade students learned elements of poetry such as couplets, extended metaphors, hyperbole, imagery, rhyme scheme, meter, word choice, repetition, and theme. Students were exposed to various types of poems via popular poets such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Johnny Cash, Langston Hughes, Dylan Thomas, and William Shakespeare. We then tried our hand at writing poetry with most students choosing Haiku, Diamante, narrative and free verse styles to share with their classmates. Pictures shown are the culmination of the unit with poetry and coffee bar day where we celebrated our accomplishments. Despite their initial reservations, we discovered that we have several talented poets in our midst in the Putnam County R-1 Middle School.