Poetry
Day 1 – introduction Tues.
11/5
what
is poetry? 3.3.1
Day 2 – couplet Wed.
11/6
rhyming
3.7.4
Day 3 – unrhyming/unrhythmic Thurs.
11/7
describe
a feeling 3.5.2
- -
-
Day 4 – limerick Tues.
11/12
tell
a story, pun, or joke 3.5.5
Day 5 – nonsense Wed.
11/13
onomatopoeia
3.3.5, 3.7.4
Day 6 – sonnet Thurs.
11/14
metaphor
and simile 3.7.4, 3.5.4
- -
-
Day 7 – haiku Tues.
11/19
adjectives,
describing words 3.6.5, 3.7.4, 3.5.4
Day 8 – cinquain Wed.
11/20
adjectives,
describing words 3.6.5, 3.7.4, 3.5.4
Day 9 – Play/lines/conversation Thurs. 11/21
past,
present, future 3.6.4
- -
-
Day 10 – shapes Mon.
11/25
metaphor
and simile 3.7.4, 3.5.4
Day 12 – Thanksgiving Turkeys Wed. 11/27
audience
3.5.5
- -
-
Final Project: Publishing the Poetry Mon.-Tues.
12/2-12/3
3.3.1
Objective:
Students will be able to explain what makes a poem.
Materials:
poetry samples, dry erase board and marker
Procedures:
·
Read
“Short Gaits with Three Spiders.”
·
What
is it? Not a story, not a report… a poem.
· What is a poem? What do we know about poetry? How is it like/unlike prose? Who reads it and when and where? What can it be written about? How long is it? (Look at the 2-line poem, and the Odyssey)
· Read a few aloud, incl. “Eletelephony” and “To be or not to be.”
Poems/Resources:
Short Gaits with Three Spiders (Matt Welter)
Eletelephony (L Richards)
Zoo (student)
To Be or Not To Be (Shakespeare)
No (Silverstein)
Three Stings (Silverstein)
Daddy Fixed the Breakfast (John Ciardi)
Objective: Students will write at least one poem using rhyming words.
Materials:
poetry samples, writing notebooks and pencils
Procedures:
· Read “Father William.”
· Give the students a copy of “Spider, Spider” and read it together.
· What is special about the sounds at the end of each line? (they rhyme) Those two likes together are called a couplet. Read “Zoo” and “Hog.”
· Review the rhyming sounds that have been discussed in Word Block (often words that have the same spelling pattern will rhyme and vice versa).
· Read the first stanza or two of “A Bird Came Down the Walk.” Note that the rhyming lines aren’t always next to each other.
· Write some rhyming words on the board and make a short poem about a spider together. It can be long, like “Father William” was, or short, like “Stone Airplane.” Note also that sometimes there’s nothing to rhyme with a word, and it must be changed (for example, orange or purple – or W?)
· Students return to their desks to write at least two poems using rhymes.
· Check on the students while they work. The teacher or fellow students can help each other find rhyming words.
Poems/Resources:
Spider, Spider (student)
W (James Reeves)
Father William (L Carroll)
Show
Fish (Silverstein)
Stone
Airplane (Silverstein)
A
Bird Came Down the Walk (E Dickinson)
Zoo
(student)
Hog
(student)
Objective:
Students will write at least one unrhyming poem.
Students will use words to describe or evoke a
feeling.
Materials:
poetry samples, writing notebooks and pencils
Procedure
·
Read
the book/poem Hoops to the class.
Ask how it makes them feel.
·
Read
“Listening to Grownups Quarreling.”
·
What
feeling does that poem create? What are
some words that gave you these feelings?
·
Read
“When My Dog Died.” What feeling does
that give you? Do you think “The
Eviction” will be like that too? (read
it) Was it?
·
Did
any of these poems rhyme? Poems don’t
always have to rhyme.
Poems/Resources:
When my dog died (Freya Littledale, treasury)
Eviction
(L Clifton, treasury)
Listening
to grownups quarreling (Ruth Whitman, treasury)
Limerick
Tell
a story, pun, or joke
3.5.5
Objective:
Students will write at least one limerick, using the proper format and rhyme
pattern.
Procedure:
·
Define
“epicure” and read “An epicure, dining at crew”
·
Ask
students if they know what kind of poetry that was.
·
Give
students a copy of some limericks and read one together
·
Write
the rhyme scheme (a-a-b-b-a) on the board as well as the pattern of 3-3-2-2-3
beats per line
·
Explain
that limericks often tell a story, joke or pun.
·
Give
the students the mixed-up lines of a limerick and ask them to put them in
order, based on what they know about the beats and the rhymes.
·
Allow
the students to write their own limericks.
Poems/Resources:
Treasury page 114-117
Linking
Literature
page 73
An
epicure, dining at crew (anon)
Onomatopoeia
3.3.5,
3.7.4
Objective:
Students will write at least one nonsense poem.
Students
will use onomatopoeia in their poem.
Materials:
poetry samples, writing notebooks and pencils
Procedure:
·
Ask
some students to volunteer to perform a poem as you read it.
·
Read
“Jabberwocky” aloud to the class. If
the student performers look mystified, help them along a little – what does the
sound of the word make you think of?
·
Explain
what onomatopoeia is, and how it can be used.
·
Read
some more nonsensical poems to the class
·
Let
the students write a nonsense poem, either with made-up words that sound right,
or using real words to tell about something silly and using normal
onomatopoeia.
Poems/Resources:
Jabberwocky
(L Carroll)
Various
poems (Silverstein and Pulasky)
Performers:
Stephen – boy, Jordan –
jabberwock, Luke – father, others - toves, raths, borogroves, and a
tumtum tree
metaphor
and simile
3.7.4,
3.5.4
Objective:
Students will choose the purpose, audience, and topic for a poem of their own.
Students
will make some sort of comparison in their poem using metaphors or similes.
Materials:
poetry samples, writing notebooks and pencils
Procedure:
·
Read
Sonnet 43 by Shakespeare to the class.
What was he comparing her to?
·
Ask
if anyone has a guess as to who wrote it and what kind of poem it was.
·
Explain,
in general terms, what a sonnet is, and read Sonnet 130.
·
What
kinds of his things was he comparing her to there?
·
See
if the children know what a metaphor and simile are, and explain them.
·
Read
“The moon was but a chin of gold” by Dickinson. Ask the students to find the comparisons in that poem.
·
Allow
the students to write a poem or two on their own in any style, using at least
one simile or metaphor.
Poems/Resources:
The
moon was but a chin of gold (E Dickinson)
Sonnets
XVIII and CXXX (Shakespeare)
adjectives,
describing words
3.6.5,
3.7.4, 3.5.4
Objective: Students will demonstrate
understanding of what haiku is by writing one or two haiku
Students
will effectively use describing words in their poetry
Materials:
haiku examples, writing notebooks and pencils
Procedure:
·
Ask
the children to review what forms of poetry have been used so far.
·
Tell
them a little about haiku – where it comes from, what it’s about, but not the
technical details.
·
Read
two samples of haiku.
·
Ask
what the children notice. (It’s
short. The lines are short. Etc.)
·
Pass
out the explaining haiku and read it aloud as the students follow along. The format is explained in this piece
·
Look
at the describing words in some more haiku examples.
·
Write
a haiku on the board about the plants the class grew for science last month.
·
Ask
the children to write one or two haiku using the correct format and at least
one adjective.
Poems/Resources:
Definition
Haiku (The Everything Kids Nature Book)
Student-written
samples
Adaptations:
If the identified students have a hard time getting the syllables right, it’s
OK. Give them some help if they need
it. But I think they’ll do fine.
|
adjectives,
describing words
3.6.5,
3.7.4, 3.5.4
Objective:
Students will write a cinquain
Students will effectively use
adjectives in their poetry
Materials:
poetry samples, writing notebooks and pencils
Procedure:
·
Introduce
the word cinquain. Ask the children if
they have any idea what it could mean.
Clue: Think of Spanish numbers.
· Read “Candy.” That is a cinquain. Do they know why the poem is called that now?
· Pass out the poems so that they can see the five lines.
· Read “Father.” Try to decide what goes on each line. Write the format on the board.
· Read “Crayons.” Check to see if it fits the pattern.
· Put the words for “Horses” in order on the board.
· Students write a cinquain of their own.
Poems/Resources:
Candy
Father
Horses
Crayons (all by me)
Cinquain
1:
1 word, noun
2:
2 words, adjectives
3:
3 words, actions
4:
4 words, feelings
5:
1 word, noun
Play/lines/conversation
3.3.1
Objective:
Students will display their growing familiarity with poetry by continuing to
write poems in their writing notebooks.
Materials:
writing notebooks, pencils, poems
Procedure:
·
Have
some fluent readers familiarize themselves with “The Quiet Evenings Here”
before or during the lesson.
·
With
a helper, read aloud “Water Striders.”
·
Ask
the students: could that poem be read silently? Why do they think so, or think not?
·
With
a helper, read “Honeybees.” Does it
ever sound like this when you are talking with your friends? Which bee is right? Why?
·
Pass
out “Water Boatmen” and read it together.
Have one half of the class read one part and the other half read the
other part. How else could it be read?
·
If
time permits, have four students read “The Quiet Evenings Here.”
·
Read
some lines from a Shakespeare play in which two or more characters are
dialoging. Is this poetry as well?
·
Ask
the children to write some poems of their own.
They don’t have to be dialogue; they may want to finish a poem they
started another day.
Poems/Resources:
Joyful
Noise: (P Fleishman)
-Water boatmen (copy for class)
-Honeybees (copy and perform)
-Water
striders (copy and perform)
Big
Talk: (P Fleishman)
-The
Quiet Evenings Here (copy for students to perform)
lines
from Shakespeare
Materials:
writing journals, pencils, poems
Procedures:
·
Read
aloud, and show the class, “I Am Winding Through a Maze.”
·
Why
do you think the author wrote the poem this way? How might you write a poem about a sea shell?
·
Hand
out and read “I Am Stuck Inside a Seashell.”
·
What
are some other shapes that a poem could be written in? What if you were writing about a bear? The moon?
A star?
·
Read
“We’re Perched Upon a Star.” How else
could the author have written it in a shape?
Write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the board in star shape.
·
Who
knows what infinity is? What does it
look like? Hand out and read “I’m
Caught Up in Infinity.”
·
Do
these poems rhyme? Do they have to?
·
Ask
students to write their own rhyming or non-rhyming shape poems.
Poems/Resources:
Various
poems by J. Prelutsky (It’s Raining Pigs and Noodles)
Objective:
Students will write a poem about a color that uses some form of metaphor or
simile.
Materials:
writing notebooks, pencils, poems
Procedure:
·
Ask
students what their favorite color is.
Why do they like it? Are colors
only something to see?
·
Read
the “Colors live” poem from the end of Hailstones.
·
Ask
students what the color red makes them think of, feel, see, or otherwise sense.
·
This
is what it makes one person think of when she thinks of red. – Read “What is
Red?”
·
What
kind of images did she use there? What
did she compare red to? Did she say “it
is like” or “it is”? Is red
really those things? Why? Talk about metaphors and why poets use
them. How do we use them? Eg, “She’s a real tiger.”
·
Is
white a color? What do you think of
when you think of white?
·
Hand
out and read “What is White?”
·
Ask
students to write their own poem about color that shares what they think that
color symbolizes, sounds like, feels like, etcetera.
Poems/Resources:
Hailstones
and Halibut Bones (M O’Neill)
Objective:
Students will write about what they are thankful for, gearing it towards a
specific audience
Materials:
Turkey bodies, colored paper, scissors, pencils, crayons, writing notebook,
glue
Procedure:
·
Do
you ever share what you are thankful for at dinner on Thanksgiving? What kinds of things do you list?
·
If
a young cousin asked what you were grateful for, and your grandparent asked, do
you think you would tell them different things? Why or why not? What
about one of your parent’s friends, or someone on TV?
·
We
are going to write about who and what we are thankful for today using a special
format. When you write these things,
remember your audience. Who will it be?
(the class) So if you’re thankful for
your dog, Sparky, make sure you don’t just say “Sparky,” because this audience
won’t know what you mean.
·
Introduce
the format to be used.
·
Once
students have listed three or more things in the correct format, they may
complete the project:
Trace and cut out colored paper handprints
Write what you are
thankful for on the prints
Cut out a turkey body
Glue the prints to the
turkey for a tail
·
Finished
turkeys may be posted in the room for the day, and taken home that afternoon.
Poems/Resources:
Writing
and Art Go Hand in Hand, page 67
3.4.6,
3.4.8
Objective:
Students will evaluate their poetry and publish their best one
Materials:
writing notebooks, pencils, lined paper, construction paper, glue, scissors
Procedure:
·
What
are some ways that you can publish writing?
What have you done before?
·
We
are going to publish some of our writing by making a hall display.
·
How
do you think you can choose your best poem?
What are some things that you could look for?
·
Students
choose their best poem to revise. They
must check the words that they don’t know how to spell and conference with a
teacher before they publish.
·
The
revised poems are written neatly on lined paper. The paper for smaller poems may be cut to fit after it is
copied. They then glue it to the color
construction paper of their choice.
·
Students
who finish faster may publish more than one and/or do some free writing.
Assessment:
Check that the students have correctly revised their poems and neatly published
their original work.
Modifications:
All students should have something written; even the two identified boys
who are taken out during this time in the afternoon probably have gotten one or
two written. If they haven’t, they can
use the time to work on writing poems.