Poetry in Progress

No matter who the student is, students recognize the popularity of rap. To me, rap is poetry--poetry in progress. Why not use this medium to get students to develop skills in comprehension? My idea is to encourage students to read whatever they need to read-- whatever they have been assigned to read. While reading they would keep a few notes. Their notes would essentially become the foundation for new poems. They can call it rap, they can call it poetry, I really don't care what they call it as long as they are making progress. First the student reads the assigned reading and then the student moves what they have read to written format in the form of poetry. The final step is for the student to share their poetry out loud or share simply publishing it for the classroom setting. Their are so many ways to use technology with this lesson plan. When I first did this lesson my library media assistants read Ezra Jack Keats stories to our neighboring elementary students. My students took digital pictures of the students as they the stories were being read and as the students wrote their poems. Online and hardback rhyming sources were introduced and used by the my students and the elementary students. The results of the stories my library media assistants read and the original poems created by the elementary students to summarize the stories were in the form of a publication called Poetry in Progress. The digital pictures and the publication process both included various technology. All of the students were proud of their final publication and excerpts were even broadcasted at the elementary school. Using poetry to help improve comprehension is my idea for lessons in any subject,not just English. There is nothing wrong with using poetry, even if they call it rap, to help students to learn their lessons and feel good about learning and remembering what they have learned.