IN THE CLASSROOM:Digging into poetry

A red card with the words “meaning,” “imagery” and “sound” lay on a table where Natasha Kongsonboon and her teammates sat and studied Maya Angelou’s poem, “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me.”

Natasha and the Gifted and Talented Education students at Wilson Middle School, discussed what they each thought the poem meant to them.

“In this poem, the speaker is listing things she is not afraid of,” Natasha said.

Teammate David Bukujian, 11, has a different interpretation of the poem.

“It seems like she is not afraid,” David said. “But when you read it again, you can tell that she is afraid of things.”

Students worked in groups to discuss the poems they’d been assigned to read. Each of the groups were given cards telling them which concepts of a poem they were to analyze.

“It’s a deeper analysis of poetry,” teacher Elizabeth Beuzet said. “They have to think in a more challenging way.”

Students were asked to look for the meaning, word choice, tone, speaker, imagery, form and sound of the poems they read.

As students worked together, they answered a series of questions that helped them understand the poetry.

Frankie Foti, 12, read the poem “Western Wagons,” and tried to determine the sound. Using a rhyme scheme, Frankie learned that the sound of a poem can convey tone or meaning.

“It’s kind of a happy poem,” he said. “It’s very exciting because it’s rhythmic.”

At another table, 11-year-old Tristan Pacba and his team read “All That is Gold,” and answered questions about the meaning, speaker and form of the poem.

Tristan looked further into the author’s choice of words to conclude the meaning and tone of the poem.

“It’s like explaining that life is scary, but it doesn’t need to be,” he said, of the poem. “Word choice has so many meanings. It’s challenging.”

When the students finish analyzing their poems in groups, they will present what they have learned in front of the class, Beuzet said.

For some students, reading and understanding poetry is easy because they have developed good analytical skills, Beuzet said. Other students find poetry more difficult, she said.

“The majority of the students need a challenge,” Beuzet said. “In each of the poems, there is something hiding. Their challenge is to find the hidden meaning.”

KIDS TALK BACK

The Glendale News-Press visited Wilson Middle School and asked students: “What have you learned from reading poetry?”

“We’ve learned how to depict the sound and tone of all subjects in a poem. We learned how to analyze it and get the meaning.”

ANDRE ANDERIASIAN, 11

Glendale

“I’ve learned that, with most poems, the author wants you to read it first and think you understand it. The author wants you to think something first but the meaning may be different when you read it again.”

MADDIE CORPUZ, 12

Glendale

“There is usually a hidden meaning behind a poem. You can tell a lot about a poem by looking at it. Line, length, form and word choice can add to the meaning.”

GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN, 12

Glendale

“There are a lot of steps to analyzing poetry. You always have to find the meaning. A lot of steps take longer than others. You can always ask questions to find out what the deeper meaning is.”

YOOJIN JUNG, 12

Glendale

“There are many steps to take to learn the meaning of a poem — like speaker, tone, figurative speech. Different sections need to be analyzed.”

JESUS PALAPA, 11

Los Angele