My capstone was to teach a poetry minicourse. I chose to do this for my capstone because I genuinely love poetry and if wasn’t for the poetry minicourse that the school had during my sophmore year, my love for poetry wouldn’t have bloomed like it did. I wanted to expose the freshman in the school to what l love. This required me to figure out what was so appealing about poetry, the basic things to be able to do in order to write, and how to make the students more open minded towards creative things. This also required me to overcome a personal hurdle of mine which was to obtain a commanding voice. I needed this because in order to conduct a class of kids fresh out of middle school order is needed. In order to obtain order, a commanding voice is needed. All throughout this capstone obtaining order was my biggest hurdle. During the first quarter of my capstone my class was somewhat orderly but as the class went on, order was lost. Even though order was lost eventually, that doesn’t mean this class was unsuccessful. Some freshman were already somewhat exposed to poetry but my class opened it up even more. For instance a freshman by the name of Steven has written phenomenal poetry. It can be seen below. As I ride the train I sit and listen to the train tracks I stare my eyes into eyes of emptiness trying to find oneself. He's not sure if it's always gonna be there if it I'll get him far in life if it'll take him where he wants to go if it'll take him on the unexpected journey that lies ahead of him. His confidence unsteady no his hair gone his heart still trying to find itself. fresh from his mind He feels Lost is empty abyss hungry tired alone and refreshed is how his mind is but not how his heart body mind and soul feels trapped in a endless cycle drowning of pain and and despair. Drowning in a pool of my own blood from the cuts my own razor that was made up betrayal fake people who I thought that was down for but really was just to tell me how much that they fucking really hate me wait hold up and then they wanna wait with me and then push me to the ground and stomp all in my face and tell me how much they really been being fake with me they wanna fuck with my family. But then they wanna act fake with me. but that's not how your supposed to be Cool wit fam now you either down with all of us or nun of us point blank see what you don't know is that fake person he know not or fuck with so he needs one foot in and the other out in case he needs to pull out the glock and put a couple of those fake people into shock and if that don't work he spray until the end of the day and see if they fake anymore http://ed.ted.com/lessons/become-a-slam-poet-in-five-steps-gayle-danley http://howlround.com/from-page-to-stage-teaching-slam-poetry-in-the-high-school-classroom https://www.edutopia.org/blog/poetry-teaching-tips-new-teachers-lisa-dabbs http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2012/06/on-teaching-and-learning-with-high.html https://teach.com/what/teachers-teach/teaching-methods/ http://teaching.monster.com/benefits/articles/7638-5-simple-ways-to-teach-better