Joyful Noise

Poetry has a very important place in literature, enhancing a students’ development of literacy. It is a piece of literature that can be enjoyed by students and children off all ages. The poems in Joyful Noise focus on the life of 14 different insects; how their life began, what they do through their life, how long they live, and how they die. Each poem gives the reader a sense of what the insects are going through throughout their life.

Of all the poems in the book my favorite would have to be ‘Chrysalis Diary’. This poem sparked my interest because of the slight difference it had from the other poems. This little insect was the only one that has two separate lives. So instead of explaining what it does in each life, it explains the process of its change. Beginning with knowing when it’s time to change, all the way through to the final stage of its metamorphosis. The descriptions of what it feels, sees, and hears. This little insect tells its story to such degree it feels as though I’m experiencing the change right beside it. I also enjoyed how the diary was dated (just like regular diaries) so I was able to myself in the mind frame of the winter season, imagining seeing and feeling the changes of the weather this little bug describes.

I think a child would enjoy the rhythmic step given throughout this text. Children can enjoy the ‘bouncy’ feeling as the two voices work together to create a harmonious duet. The students would work together in partners and read together to see how their voices create a unique feeling behind each individual poem. This text would also be fun to learn about a few different kinds of insects. Children would be learning two different subjects at the same time. Reading the poetry aloud with another teacher or parent would give he students an interest in doing it themselves. While they are reading they will enjoy the different movement of poetry compared to their traditional short story, as well as learning various details in a variety of bugs’ lives.

The thought I had while reading and rereading through the text was how I would introduce it during a language arts lesson. A few ideas were; to introduce it during a language arts lesson, a class project, or a mini science lesson. My final decision came down to combining two of these ideas to get the maximum learning potential. My final choice was both a class project and a mini science lesson. The students will break up into groups of two and be assigned one bug to each group, using the bugs from the text. The groups will then be required to gather information about their assigned bug. I as the teacher will then introduce