POETRY GUIDELINES FOR WORKSHOP FEEDBACK

POETRY GUIDELINES FOR WORKSHOP FEEDBACK:

Comments that are less than insightful and courteous are not acceptable during workshops, so use the art of being tactful when addressing areas that may need strengthening in a peers’ work. Our workshops should be a positive learning experience, so everyone feels safe in sharing their work. Therefore, do not just flatter and praise peers with empty words of “I loved your poem” but actually identify the WHY and specific examples of what worked well. It helps no one to understand their strengths or weaknesses if you do not answer WHY it doesn’t work or WHY/HOW it does work well. Moreover, if you want to receive feedback on your work, you must also provide feedback on your peers’ work by using some of the points below as a guide to help you discuss a poem.

Note, during the workshop session of your work, you should be listening carefully and taking notes on the feedback others provide on your work. Remember you should not interrupt others when they are giving feedback and do not become defensive, but listen, take notes, and at the end of the feedback, ask members questions if you require clarification on something that they identified. Again, anyone who is less than courteous in giving or receiving feedback will be asked to leave and come back when they have more constructive and helpful feedback to offer. A good rule of thumb is the “sandwich approach” by layering your feedback in the following way: identify a specific strength in the work, follow with an area that needs improvement, and end your feedback by offering another key strength in the work.

1.     What’s working well in the poem and why?*

2.     Does the student leave the reader with any unanswered questions? If so, what are your questions that would help clarify your understanding of the poem?

3.     Does the reader understand the meaning of the poem and can identify a central idea or theme? If so, summarize the meaning of the poem, or are the student’s references too vague and contrived that it is too abstract to identify the meaning.

4.     Does the student use specific, concrete details and imagery to “show” rather than simply “tell” the reader? Is the language vivid, not flowery, archaic, or cliché? Does it sound original, use colorful images, and elicit an emotional response?

5.     Do they use a consistent and appropriate point of view? If not, what helpful suggestions can you make?

6.     What sort of tone do they use in the poem? Is the tone appropriate? If not, would a more sarcastic, didactic, or melancholy tone work?

7.     Does the student use forced rhyme or does the rhyme enhance the poem? If so, what lines need work and why? What appropriate suggestions can you make?

8.     Does the student use figurative language, such as personification, simile, metaphor, or hyperbole, and does it enhance the meaning of the poem or is it used inappropriately? If not, what suggestions can you make?

9.     Does the student use an appropriate structure with stanzas and/or an appropriate meter for each line to create harmony and consistent beat/rhythm or simply smoother transitions and continuity between lines or does it create more confusion because the lines are too lengthy or wordy and maybe the line breaks make it difficult to understand?

10.  Does the student have major mechanical and/or minor mechanical errors? Which grammar and punctuation issues need to be corrected, such as spelling, missing punctuation (i.e. apostrophes, commas, etc.) for minor mechanical errors? Then, consider some major mechanical errors that they need to address; in other words, do they have subject-verb agreement errors, inconsistencies in verb tense (jumping back and forth between past and present), etc.?