Using Partner Poetry to Analyze Character Perspective

Partner poems are “poems for two voices” and exactly what they sound like… poems for two students or two voices! With each poem, students work in partner pairs to read their assigned character parts and practice the back-and-forth poem together. Your students will have fun using their voices to perform the highlighted reader’s theater style poetry scripts.

Analyze Character Perspective with Partner Poems

Why Use Poems for Two Voices

Students love partner poems, especially when they get to practice the poems with a reading partner and bring characters to life with their voices. The poems are great for repeated reading fluency practice.

With the MsJordanReads collection of poems, your students will be challenged to think more deeply about the characters, as they analyze different perspectives and make inferences about character feelings.

When introducing each poem, discuss how each character feels in relation to the problem, experience, or situation. Each character has a unique perspective, and when a student gets to walk a few moments in that character’s shoes, it often leads to meaningful discussions. Many of the poems have positive messages and lessons that the characters can teach them.

Develop social emotional skills, too, as students explore the characters in each poem. Students will be able to practice empathy as they take on the character part and pretend to BE that character for the poem. After you guide them in analyzing the characters feelings, actions, and perspectives, the students will be better able to read with expression and change their voices to reflect the actual emotions and feelings of the character. Challenge your students to use their voices to SHOW what the characters are going through.

For some of the poems, they may even experience the lesson that is learned by the characters, as well! For example, in the poem Seahorse Wishes, students can explore the seahorse character’s feelings of wanting to be a horse and the horse character in wanting to be a seahorse and can learn the lesson of being happy with who you are through the characters’ experiences.

ANALYZE CHARACTER PERSPECTIVE WITH PARTNER POEMS

Directions for Using Partner Poems

When introducing new partner poems, I usually follow the Fluency Five steps for repeated reading: Model, Echo Read, Choral Read, Practice, and Perform.

Model – Read both parts of the poem aloud and pre-teach any challenging words and vocabulary. During this step, guide the students in analyzing character perspectives and making inferences about character feelings. Not only will this support their understanding of the poem, but it will help them apply the perspectives and feelings to their voices as they practice and read the poem with expression.

Echo – Taking a few minutes to echo read the partner poem is especially helpful for students who struggle with fluency. The goal is to help students read the poem independently, without having to focus too much mental energy on decoding the words. If a student has a difficult time reading their lines smoothly, accurately, or with appropriate expression, you may want to “echo read” with that student. This extra fluency coaching step will help them develop the confidence and fluency skills to practice the poem on their own.

Choral – Choral reading is also helpful for students who need a little extra scaffolded practice before practicing the poem on their own. Students can choral read their own part (if there are multiple students working on the same part) or the whole poem. I often have the students practice both parts when doing partner poems so they can take turns with the different characters.

Practice – Let the students practice their parts independently and then practice reading it aloud with their partners. Consider using whisper phones so the students can hear their voices and fluency!

Perform – The students can then record themselves reading the poem or perform for the class. If you’re using the same poem for your entire class, you can have each group of students read the character part chorally. If you assigned different partner poems to each partner pair, you can have them perform individually.