Poetry recitation contest at Vermont School..

About a month ago, fifth graders along with other grades from primary school were asked to look up for a English poem they were to recite in their language lessons.

This activity consisted in presenting students what a poem was and how real poets tell poems. Students had then to recite their poems in front the classroom and were graded according to a rubric criteria.

When the day of their presentations arrived, I was particularly surprised to see how the majority of female students from 5C and 5D had worked so hard on memorising their poems. I noticed they had also practiced pronunciation, intonation and body language a lot. Of course, some of them felt rather nervous for standing in front theirs peers; yet the teacher tried to encourage them to recite their poems in a natural way.

However I found that male students from 5B, unlike their female peers, did not seem to be engaged in the activity and their grades were evidently much lower than female students'. They had had a long time to look for their poems and to practice for the contest, but some of them didn't even have a poem to recite...

I wonder if this has something to do with the activity itslef. Was poetry recitation a good way to practice pronunciation, intonation and vocabulary?... I think objectives were met in the other two grades but it looks like male students found it a very dull activity...

Several days after that, I got to talk to some male fifth-grade students and I found out they feel very comfortable telling stories about some experiences they have had before. This made me think of a more catching activity for them. Why not having a story-telling class in which they can bring back some memories or simply do some presentations in a rather informal way? As for now, I will have a talk with my tutor teacher and see what she thinks about this...