At the heart of any high quality literature experience in a school setting is literary talk – discussion. Of course we need to model what literary comments sound like - on a very regular basis. Regie Routman, in Conversations (chapter five), helps us to understand that these discussions, even among young students, can be very deep and productive.

While we are conducting excellent discussions about literature, including poetry, we will be meeting a variety of standards, among them this one from CCSS:

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (eg: listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).

As the school year progresses, your students will be able to conduct their own discussions in small groups with less and less frequent intervention from you. It will happen sooner with some groups than others, of course, and that is perfectly reasonable. Dani Bozzuto, your class this year is probably already there, right?