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Dr. Christy Petroze’s Highlands Middle School (Ft. Thomas, Ky.) seventh grade students work together in poetry circles to examine the form, content, language, and meaning of poetry. At the beginning of the school year, Christy introduces the students to each part of the explication of a poem in the form of a job. After the students work with the core content elements and practice each job individually, they work in groups to construct meaning through discourse. As they engage with each job, they practice the strategies of proficient readers. The poem used in the lesson is “Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Gwendolyn Brooks

This video was originally part of a multimedia professional development resource, Literacy Without Limits, produced by KET in 2007 in collaboration with the Kentucky Department of Education.

Literacy Without Limits

How will using this strategy help your students understand the text? What changes (if any) will you need to make to your current instructional practice in order to utilize the strategy?

What characteristics of highly effective teaching and learning do you observe?

Kentucky Department of Education: Characteristics of Highly Effective Teaching and Learning