Writing the "I Poem"

Question: Post an entry on your blog about this experience; what is your opinion of the I POEM for 2 Voices; describe the process; what did you learn specifically about your cultural group? Please write thoughtful responses, as we will come back to these.

Answer: I think the I Poem for two voices is a great idea. I love poetry and having students write their own. I think this is a wonderful idea for students to engage themselves with poetry and readings. I personally enjoyed doing I Poems for Two Voices with the Cinderella stories because doing it at a level with more simplistic readings would help me understand how to do it better with more difficult readings. Completing the poems was also really hard. I thought it wouldn't take me very long to "fill in the blanks" but it did...and I am still not very happy with the result. I am going to go back and change things so that I can be happy with it and even turn it in with my portfolio in another class. One of the things I enjoyed reading most about was Baba Yaga. I couldn't find many ways to include her in my poem, but she really intrigued me. This is a cool website I found that tells all about her. Baba Yaga is like our "wicked witch of the west." I love it! This website also help me better understand Baba Yaga's role in Vasilisa and the Brave. She did not serve as a bad woman who wanted food, but a woman who sought our pureness and pureness of the heart. She rewarded Vasilisa with the glowing skull that killed her step-mother. In the end, Baba Yaga was a good person. This website help me understand that better. I also enjoyed looking up Nyoka from "Mufaro's Beautiful Face." I loved this word and found it neat to read more about it.

I hope I can use this type of assessment in my classroom one day. I really enjoyed trying to compare the two, and I think it would be neat to try and even do three! That would a fun challenge!