I asked the class to write a poem together, everybody contributing one line. The
way I conceived of the poem, it was easy to write, had rules like a game, and
included the pleasures without the anxieties of competitiveness. No one had to
worry about failing to write a good poem because everyone was only writing one
line; and I specifically asked the children not to put their names on their line.
Everyone was to write the line on a sheet of paper and turn it in; then I would
read them all as a poem.
-- Kenneth Koch, from Wishes,
Lies, and Dreams
Introduction
When children hear, write, and recite poetry,
they understand more deeply the qualities of verse — the importance of sound,
compactness, internal integrity, imagination and line. Working collaboratively
on poetry provides a safe structure for student creativity.
Using resources
available through EDSITEment, make poetry exciting for your students as they listen
to, write and recite poems that are sure to please.
Learning Objectives
After completing the lessons in this unit,
students will be able to: - Create lines of poetry in response to poems
read aloud.
- Identify musical elements of literary language, such as rhymes
or repeated sounds.
- Recite short poems or excerpts.
Guiding Questions:
What do we learn about the nature of poetry from hearing
poems read aloud? How can the work of well-known poets inform student poetry writing?
What has to be taken into consideration when performing a poem?
Preparing to Teach this Lesson
- Review each lesson in this unit and
select archival materials you'd like to use in class. Bookmark these materials,
along with other useful websites, if possible; download and print out selected
documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
- The poetry templates used in this unit (Lesson
2) are also available from EDSITEment in PDF
format. Download the Adobe
Acrobat Reader. You may wish to download the templates and make copies for
students to use in their individual or group work on poems; you could also copy
the templates onto overhead film and display them for writing poetry as a whole
class.
- The collaborative writing of a class poem is a non-threatening
approach for introducing students to poetry writing. Students contribute one sentence
or less, yet feel the pride of accomplishing an entire poem.
- Poetry
can be an exciting classroom activity when poems remain the center of the learning.
Focus on the poem itself, rather than generalizations about the nature of poetry.
The activities to follow allow for many teachable moments of content about poetry
(rhyme, meter, form). Only you can determine what is most appropriate for your
class.
- While conducting this unit, you will serve as a model
for your students by reading poems with enthusiasm and understanding, contributing
to the writing of poems, and remaining actively involved in the design of the
class's poetry recitations. Your interest and personal touch will help engage
and motivate students to appreciate and enjoy poetry.
- This lesson
plan offers a variety of activities
and resources (including
links to child-friendly poems available online and recommendations of useful books)
to enable you to locate material appropriate for your class. Using a variety of
poems will encourage students to form their own relationship with the genre of
poetry. Given the great variety of poems and poetry-writing techniques offered,
as well as the unpredictable nature of student responses, remain flexible, but
focused as you present this lesson to students.
- Poems appeal
to the senses. Involving the senses as part of your teaching strategy will increase
the likelihood of appealing to students with a variety of learning styles and
abilities. When the students come in from the rain, read "Weather" by Eve Merriam.
Use R.L. Stevenson's "Block City" after the students have been working with blocks.
- Look for opportunities to create poetry assignments around curriculum content.
For example, one "rule" for a collaborative poem could be, "Write a line with
a vocabulary word from our reading lesson."
- The following resources,
available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website The
American Academy of Poets, provide background on teaching poetry to younger
students (Note: Though these excerpts are directed to the intermediate grades,
reading Koch's remarks will help you understand how to work with poetry in any
classroom.):
- Geared to the primary grades, Wishes, Lies, and
Dreams, by Kenneth Koch (Harper Perennial Library, 2000; ISBN 0060955090),
offers a much more complete investigation of class collaborations than is possible
here, plus many assignment suggestions and examples of student work.
Suggested Activities
Lesson
1: Listening to Poetry
Lesson
2: Writing Poetry
Lesson
3: Choral Readings for Poems
Extending
the Lesson
Lesson 1 Listening to Poetry
Begin the unit by reading poems aloud to the class, one or more per day
for a few days. This reading can be done during the traditional story time or
whenever appropriate. When you read a poem for the first time, students should
simply listen. If desired, use a motivator — a read aloud, a picture, an
experience — to establish an anticipatory set. If you plan to pass out copies
of a poem, wait until after the first reading and the brief discussion that follows.
Read each poem at least twice. In classes with strong volunteer readers,
encourage students to read small sections of the piece to create a second reading
(or third, if the poem is brief and a second reading by you is most appropriate).
Different voices will bring something different to each reading.
After
the first reading, ask students to tell what they noticed about the poem. What
word or lines "jumped out" at them? All answers are correct; students are simply
telling what happened to them as they listened to the poem. When appropriate,
students can be asked to hypothesize why particular elements were memorable. Look
for teachable moments here, but be brief and to the point.
Should a student
cite "checkerberry cheddar chew" from Jack Prelutsky's "Bleezer's Ice Cream" as
memorable, you might point out the "ch" sound that begins each word. In some classrooms,
it might be appropriate to add that poets call such patterns alliteration. The
best terms to introduce are those that will make discussing poetry easier. Use
these terms yourself when you talk about poetry. Keep enjoyment of the poem itself
the top priority.
Before the second reading, if desired, ask the class
to listen for something in particular, especially an element brought into the
discussion by a student. For example, if someone had pointed to a funny line,
ask the students to listen for other lines they think are funny.
After
the second reading, ask the students what they notice or remember this time. If
you asked the class to listen for something specific, find out what students noticed.
The following books contain poems ideal for reading aloud in class. The books
listed in the Other
Resources section also contain poems suitable for reading aloud. - Bennett,
Jill. Noisy Poems. Oxford University Press,
1989. (ISBN 0192782193)
Alliteration-oriented poems kids enjoy. Noisy
Poems can be a great tool when your kids study letters/sound/senses.
- Korman, Bernice and Gordon Korman. The D- Poems
of Jeremy Bloom: A Collection of Poems About School, Homework, and Life (Sort
Of). Scholastic, 1992. (ISBN 0590448196)
- Silverstein,
Shel. Where the Sidewalk Ends. HarperCollins
Children's Books, 1973. (ISBN 0060256672)
The following poems, available
online through EDSITEment resource The
Academy of American Poets, were written specifically for young people or have
been traditional staples in the elementary classroom. Choose poems appropriate
to your particular group. - "Be
Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face" by Jack Prelutsky
Show a picture of some
animals and their "noses." In insects, the sense of smell is located chiefly in
the antennae. Most amphibians (the group that includes frogs, toads and salamanders)
sense smell using an organ inside their mouths. Ask the students if anyone among
them has ever banged his/her nose against something. Where else could our noses
be located to avoid such accidents? As you read the poem, make sure to put humorous
emphasis on the last line of each of the middle stanzas to demonstrate how each
caps its verse. For example, show the class through your reading how unpleasant
it would be to "be forced to smell your feet."
- "Bleezer's
Ice Cream" by Jack Prelutsky
This is a terrific poem to use when making
ice cream in class. You may wish to ask students to bring in empty ice cream cartons
from home to help create a list of flavors. Which of Bleezer's flavors are familiar?
Which are probably not real? Recite the list of flavors as though they are all
appealing. Read the poem again, reacting in your own way to the various flavors.
- "Fifteen,
Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About" by Judith Viorst
Read Viorst's "Alexander
and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" (1972) aloud to establish an
anticipatory set. What could make today a good
day or a bad day? What would Alexander worry about? During one of the readings
of the poem, students can count to see how many things to worry about there really
are in the poem. Are there 15 worries or 16? Read each worry as if it really might
happen.
- "I'm
Nobody! Who Are You?" by Emily Dickinson
Read as if you're telling a secret.
- "Jabberwocky"
by Lewis Carroll
Make sure you have a sense of what "happens" in the poem
so that you have a clear notion of the meaning of every nonsense word. Use a few
nonsense words as you direct the class to prepare for a read-aloud. Read the poem
as if you're relating a tall tale of your own heroism — stand up and brandish
your imaginary sword.
- "The
Land of Nod" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Let students talk about dreams.
During the first or second reading, stop before the last word of the second line
of each couplet. Can students guess the next word?
- "Learning"
by Judith Viorst
Is the "I" pleased or displeased about what s/he is learning?
- "Mary's
Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale
Let students recite what they know of the
poem. This is the less familiar complete version. Stop after "To see a lamb at
school." What do the students think will happen?
- "Thinking
in Bed" by Dennis Lee
Make sure your reading shows the "I" is giving serious
thought to the problem of remembering who s/he is.
Other recommendations
may be found at: Streaming audio/video recitations of the
following poems are available on The
Favorite Poem Project, a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library - "The
Sloth" by Theodore Roethke
Show the class a picture of a sloth.
- "Casey
at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
This old chestnut has some difficult
language, but it is read here by an 11-year-old baseball fan whose story is sure
to interest sports-minded students.
- "Block
City" by R. L. Stevenson
If your students work with blocks, read this
poem as they create.
After a few days, begin the poetry writing and recitation
activities that follow; continue to introduce poems to the class throughout the
year.
Lesson 2 Writing Poetry
Writing sessions should be based on a model poem, read aloud to the class
as in Lesson 1.
(Note: Poetry templates included in this lesson are also available on EDSITEment
in PDF format; download
the Adobe Acrobat Reader) The model should suggest a starting "rule" (or rules)
for individual lines of poetry, which will be composed by each member of the class.
The class can add to the rule, as desired. For example, if the model poem dictates
that each line must contain a color followed by the word "as" and a comparison,
the class might add that the color should refer to something in the classroom.
The result might be something like this: Our reading couch is
as green as a Sour Apple Jolly Rancher.
Assignments can also be completed independently
by able individuals. In such cases, the assignment "Write a poetry line that includes
a color followed by the word 'as' and a comparison" might become instead: "Write
a poem in which almost every line includes a color followed by the word 'as' and
a comparison. Locate the poem in a familiar place."
Collect the individual
lines from students, put them in order — randomly or intentionally —
and read the poem aloud as a whole. Discourage students from changing other students'
lines, but allow authors to change their own lines, if desired. The poem can be
revised with additions and/or order changes. For example, ask the students to
suggest one more line to serve as an ending. Whenever practical, include student
work in the poetry recitation activities in Lesson
3.
For classes in which students cannot write their own lines, consider
"buddying up" with an older class. Students can dictate lines or poems that their
buddies can write down.
Where students are writing independently, maintain
folders of their work for use in a class poetry reading and/or anthology.
The following poems, available on the EDSITEment resource The
American Academy of Poets unless otherwise noted, are suitable to use as writing
models. Assignment ideas are included. - "Catch
a Little Rhyme" by Eve Merriam
Base your assignment on the "I ... but"
format of the model. One possibility, used by Koch, is "I used to be ..., but
now I ..." Where students are able, they can be challenged to use rhyming words
at the end of each part of the sentence (e.g., "I used to be a talker, but now
I play soccer").
- "Dora
Diller" by Jack Prelutsky
Use the poem as a template in which students
fill in the blanks. Lines can be assigned to individual students, or independent
students can complete the entire "puzzle" on their own.
Template:
"My stomach's full of _________!" (an object, word to rhyme with the last word
in line 3)
Lamented ___________. (a name)
Her mother sighed, "____________.
(rhymes with line 1)
You ate __________!" (rhymes with the name)
Example:
"My stomach's full of elephants!"
Lamented Kathy Strunk.
Her mother sighed, "You have no sense.
You ate your father's trunk!"
- "Lullaby"
by Eve Merriam
Using the line "Purple as a king's cape" as a model, ask each
student to contribute one line that begins with a color followed by a comparison
starting with "as." Encourage students to let the comparison be unexpected. (Introduce
the term simile if appropriate.) Once all the
lines have been compiled, ask for suggestions for a beginning and ending either
from the lines provided or by creating additional lines. Give the poem a title
and read it aloud to the class.
- "Table
Manners" by Gelett Burgess
Students' lines can suggest silly (or serious)
rule-breaking the Goops might do if they were going along with the class on an
upcoming activity. Each line can begin with "The Goops they..." The poem could
even be set in the lunchroom. The poem doesn't have to rhyme, but placing a pair
of rhyming lines last can create a sense of finality.
Template:
The Goops they _____,
And the Goops they _____;
They __________-- (rhymes
with line 1)
Oh, they _____! (rhymes with line 2)
The Goops _____,
And _____. (rhymes with "you")
And that is why I'm glad that I
Am not
a Goop--are you?
Example:
"The Goops at the Museum"
The Goops
they touch the artwork,
And the Goops they chew their gum;
They go completely
berserk
Oh, they scream and run!
The Goops take off their shoes
And
leap like kangaroos.
And that is why I'm glad that I
Am not a Goop--are
you?
- "What
Will You Be?" by Dennis Lee
Each student can create a line based on the
form:
When I grow up, I'm going to be a ______,
And ____________________________.
Lines can be realistic:
When I grow up, I'm going to be a doctor
And save lives every day.
Or, lines can be fantastical:
When
I grow up, I'm going to be a jet plane
And fly to Hawaii whenever I want.
- "What a Day" by Shel Silverstein. (Where the Sidewalk
Ends. Harper Collins Children's Books, 1974. ISBN 060256672.)
Students
can each supply a line rhyming with a specific opening line and beginning with
"My." When put together, the lines create a poem ending with "What a ______."
Brainstorm with the class words that rhyme with the word chosen for the blank.
Example:
What a Night
What a night,
Oh what a night
My left hand forgot my right
My bike lost its front
headlight.
My bedroom was a hideous sight.
And now my crayons will not
write.
I'm seven years old
And feeling fright!
Oh what a night, Oh
what a night.
Students working independently can use the following template:
What a _____, (such as "night" or "trip" or ______)
Oh what a ____. (same
as first line)
My _________,
And now my _____ will not _____.
I'm
____ years old
And ____ing _____,
Oh what a _____, Oh what a _____.
- "Messy Room" by Shel Silverstein. (A Light in
the Attic. Harper Collins Children's Books, 1981. ISBN 0060256737.)
Does the classroom need a clean-up? Use "Messy Room" as a model for a piece that
describes a particular place — a location the students have visited or that
they have seen in a picture. Begin with "Whosever ______ (classroom, meadow, forest,
farm...) this is should be _______!" Students each contribute a line beginning
with the same word. End with "I knew ___________."
- "Whatif?"
by Shel Silverstein. (A Light in the Attic.
HarperCollins Children's Books, 1981. ISBN 0060256737.)
Students can write
their own lines beginning with "Whatif." Frame the student lines with Silverstein's:
OPENING
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some Whatifs crawled
inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same
old Whatif song:
Whatif...
CLOSING
Everything seems swell, and
then
The nighttime Whatifs strike again!
Or, the class can create
its own beginning and ending.
- "Weather"
by Eve Merriam
Write a line of poetry with a sound and an animal or object
in it. Give the poem a title.
- "Hope
Is a Tattered Flag" by Carl Sandburg, on The
Favorite Poem Project, a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library
Decide on an abstract term everyone in the class will use
to begin his/her line. Each line demonstrates the term, rather than defining it.
Give the poem a title.
Some additional ideas: - If the class is
having trouble generating lines (either to write or dictate to the teacher), individual
students can provide as little as one word to help move forward the writing process.
For instance, once the rules are established, a student can suggest an appropriate
word around which other students can suggest a line. A single student can also
suggest a rhyming word to complete a line.
- Change rules as desired
to encourage creativity. For example, "Write a line in which you use the color
yellow" can become "Draw something that makes you think of the color yellow."
As you circulate around the room, ask for and write down the students' descriptions
of their pictures. These comments may be combined to create an illustrated class
poem.
- As a class, brainstorm a list of students' favorite words
(like mine, "mélange") — for use when composing — to display in your
classroom writing center. Start by thinking up categories, such as food, sounds,
animal sounds, nonsense words and so on. The list should be hung up and added
to whenever. Words should be copied onto large strips and placed in the writing
center with blank strips for students to add new words. Students can also maintain
special pages in their writing notebooks for favorite words. After the list has
lengthened, randomly place a few of the words in envelopes. Write on-the-spot
collaborative poems using the words.
- Place an assortment of interesting
objects on a table. Have students observe them, write down words associated with
them, and put together lines of poetry based on the objects.
- Ask
students to bring in photos of their family members for the eventual purpose of
writing poems about them. Read aloud poems from Fathers,
Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: A Collection of Family Poems by Mary Ann Hoberman
(Puffin, 1993; ISBN 0140548491). Students should make notes in their journals
about their photos. Help your students draw out details by posing questions such
as "What is in your dad's hand?"
- Try writing "looking out the
window" poems, prompted by sights observed out the classroom window.
- Have you ever been surprised to notice the moon in the middle of the day?
Get inspired to write moon poems by reading Moon Journals:
Writing, Art and Inquiry Through Focused Nature Study by Joni Chancer and
Gina Rester-Zodrow (Heinemann, 1997; ISBN 0435072218).
Lesson 3 Choral Readings for Poems
As your students continue to hear and write poetry throughout the year,
give them opportunities to participate in recitations by the whole class, small
groups or individuals. "Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices," by Paul Fleischman,
written for students age 9 to 12, serves as a terrific model for choral reading
of poems.
The following poems, all available on EDSITEment-reviewed
websites, work well as group recitations. Make sure the title and author are always
recognized as part of a recitation. Other poems
that work well for group recitation include: - "Invitation" by Shel Silverstein.
(Where the Sidewalk Ends. HarperCollins Children's
Books, 1973. ISBN 0060256672.)
A great way to begin a public performance or
a class poetry reading.
- "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not
Take the Garbage Out" by Shel Silverstein. (Where
the Sidewalk Ends. Harper Collins Children's Books, 1974. ISBN 060256672.)
The class can recite in unison the first two lines, as well as "OK, I'll
take the garbage out!" and "And always take the garbage out!" Individuals can
be assigned the remaining lines. It probably won't take much encouragement to
get the kids to express appropriate disgust.
- "Sick" by Shel Silverstein.
(Where the Sidewalk Ends. Harper Collins Children's
Books, 1974. ISBN 060256672.)
Though this poem is longer than some, even non-readers
can tackle a choral reading of "Sick." Assign a malady to each student. For example,
one student's entire part might be: "I'm sure that my left leg is broke." Encourage
each student to demonstrate the malady as the line is recited. (A little exaggerated
limping will do the trick. For added humor, have the student's "injury" show up
in the right leg.) To avoid confusion, students can be placed in the order in
which the lines are assigned. Have the whole class recite the punch line, "G'bye,
I'm going out to play!"
Once the class has experience with recitation,
put together a class poetry reading for an audience. Use a mix of student-written
poems along with professional work. To maintain variety, employ a range of recitation
strategies, with individual, small- and large-group recitations, and some occasional
dramatic renderings in which students act out the text or strike poses to demonstrate
specific sections.
Extending the Lesson
- Have students create individual poetry
anthologies including original work, favorite published poems and illustrations.
Consider having technically savvy students build a Web page for their poetry using
an HTML editor.
- Invite a local poet into your classroom to share
with the students and to listen to their work. Poet-in-the-classroom programs
are widespread.
- Look for ways to use poetry throughout the curriculum.
For example, if you cover ecology and the problem of waste disposal, Shel Silverstein's
"Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out" might be a good starting
point for discussion.
- Once your students are experienced poets,
consider a field trip to a local art museum. Give students the opportunity to
react to art with poetry. If students choose a work of art that inspires them,
take some time later to discuss what inspires people to write poetry (or to create
art for that matter). What inspired the students about each particular work? How
did that inspiration lead to a poem?
- Link poetry, art and research
with student-created "wonder books." In their wonder books, students make drawings
of and list observations concerning things that they wonder about. They then conduct
research and use non-fiction/fiction/poetry to report on their findings.
Selected EDSITEment Websites
-
Academy of American Poets
http://www.poets.org/index.cfm
-
Recommended Poems: Lists and Links: More Great Poems
http://www.poets.org/exh/parts.cfm?prmID=82#morepoems
-
Seussville
http://www.randomhouse.com/seussville/
-
Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org
-
Favorite Poem Project
http://www.favoritepoem.org/
Other Resources:
Recommended reading
from Carol
Hurst's Children's Literature Page, a link from Internet
Public Library - Bryan, Ashley. ABC of
African-American Poetry. Atheneum, 1997. (ISBN 0689812094)
- Foster,
John. Another First Poetry Book. Oxford, 1988.
(ISBN 019917119X)
- Foster, John. Another Fourth
Poetry Book. Oxford, 1989. (ISBN 0199171254)
- Foster, John. Another
Second Poetry Book. Oxford, 1988. (ISBN 0199162298)
- Worth, Valerie.
All the Small Poems and Fourteen More. Illustrated
by Natalie Babbitt. Farrar, 1994. (ISBN 0374302111)
Recommended poetry
read-alouds - Carr, Jan, Beatrice Schenk deRegniers, Eva Moore and Mary
M. White, ed. Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child's
Book of Poems. Scholastic, 1988. (Grades K-5)
- Dakos, Kalli. If
You're Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand: Poems About School. Illustrated
by G. Brian Karas. Simon & Schuster, 1990. (Grades 1-8)
- Greenfield, Eloise.
Honey, I Love. Illustrated by Diane and Leo
Dillon. HarperCollins, 1976. (Preschool-Grade 3)
- Hoberman, Mary Ann. A
House Is a House for Me. Illustrated by Betty Fraser. Viking, 1978. (Preschool-Grade
4)
- Lansky, Bruce, ed. Kids Pick the Funniest
Poems. Illustrated by Stephen Carpen. Meadowbrook, 1991. (Grades K-8)
- Lee,
Dennis. The Ice Cream Store. Illustrated by
David McPhail. Scholastic, 1991. (Preschool-Grade 2)
- Prelutsky, Jack.
The New Kid on the Block. Illustrated by James
Stevenson. Greenwillow, 1984. (Grades K-4)
- Prelutsky, Jack, ed. The
Random House Book of Poetry for Children. Illustrated by Arnold Lobel.
Random House, 1983. (Grades K-5)
- Schwartz, Alvin. And
the Green Grass Grew All Around: Folk Poetry from Everyone. Illustrated
by Sue Truesdell. HarperCollins, 1992. (Grades K-4)
- Silverstein, Shel.
Where the Sidewalk Ends. HarperCollins, 1973.
(Grades K-8)
- Westcot, Nadine Bernard, ed. and illus. Never
Take a Pig to Lunch and Other Poems About the Fun of Food. Orchard, 1994.
(Grades K-4)
Recommended picture books for inspiring art and poetry
- Bates, Katherine Lee. O Beautiful for Spacious
Skies. (Illustrated by Wayne Thiebauld)
- Florian, Douglas. Insectlopedia.
- Lawrence,
Jacob. Harriet and the Promised Land.
- Littlechild,
George. This Land Is My Land.
- Meade,
Holly. Hush! A Thai Lullaby by Minfong Ho.
- Meyers,
Walter Dean. Harlem Poem. (Pictures by Chris
Meyers)
- Navasky, Bruno Peter. Festival in
My Heart Poems.
- Rochelle, Brenda, ed. Words
With Wings: A Treasury of African American Poetry and Art.
- Shange,
Ntozake. I Live in Music. (Paintings by Romare
Bearden)
- Willard, Nancy. Pish Posh said Heieronymous
Bosch. (Illustrated by the Dillons)
Standards Alignment
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