I think writing poetry and writing about poetry are pretty much connected but to a certain degree, they also require different approaches. When writing poetry you focus on things such as creativity, expression, form, and imagery. It’s about playing with words to create meaning beyond face value. On the other hand, writing about poetry is more analytical. It's more about breaking down the elements of a poem and how those particular elements contribute to the poem's overall message. Essentially when you write poetry you are creating your own message while when you write about poetry you are dissecting someone else's message.
Personally, I've never been a big fan of writing poetry I have always found it difficult. It is probably one of the literary genres I struggle with the most. In the beginning, I honestly was not excited to be doing a poetry unit in class but now my mindset has completely shifted. I was shocked that I had an easy time writing my own poems and even enjoyed it too. I think the assignments we did in class were all super fun and approached poetry in a way that made it seem managble.
After this experience, I learned new ways to make poetry units fun for students. I really liked the wrecking the first person assignment, it was super creative and made lots of us in class come up with awesome poems. I also enjoyed the whole poetry slam reading we did in class. I think reading our poems in front of each other brought us closer together as a class. I can definitely see this activity work as a team-building exercise. In general, though I think what I took away the most from this experience is how it's absolutely possible to make English class fun.
