An Example of a Teaching Essay - Goddard College's Intranet

Teaching Essay, Ken Damerow
version of the focus poem on a topic of their own choosing. Afterwards, students were
given the option of sharing their poem with the group.
A larger goal was to see how the weekly poetry session spilled over into other
writing. I was hoping students would transfer the craft lessons they received on Fridays into
their prose writing during the week. My worry was that as before, the models would seem
too remote from their experience and place a burden on their attempts that could not be
overcome. To avoid this, I decided to use as my models the kid examples illustrated in
Koch’s book.
The first of the fifteen sessions were devoted to writing in general with an emphasis
on writing as a process of gathering ideas, writing a discovery draft, revising, editing, and
publishing. This initial work, I’ve found over the years, is essential to dispel student anxieties
about such things as spelling correctly in a first draft, writing for the teacher rather than
exploring one’s own interests, writer’s block sparked from trying to get it perfect right away,
etc. By portraying writing as a complex task with many steps, teachers empower students by
legitimating their feelings of being overwhelmed by the task and by giving them tools to
break down the task of writing into manageable chunks.
The practicum then focused on seven poetical ideas derived from Koch’s book:
• I Wish to get at desires and wants;
• Strange Comparisons to get at simile;
• the Noise Poem to get at sound language;
• the Dream Poem to illustrate the idea that on the page anything can
happen even though it might be impossible in real life;
• the Metaphor Poem to explore metaphor;
• Metaphors Using Of to explore word choice and sentence variety;
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