3-21-13
Book Talks
Book Club Reflections
Book Club Presentations
Using Poetry to Teach Content
Looking at “Units”
Book Talks
Book Club Reflections
• What was your prior experience with book clubs?
• What did you think about the idea before the first session?
• How did your particular group function?
highlights
lowlights
• How might you use this concept in your class?
• What questions/concerns do you still have?
Book Club Presentations
Poetry Beyond ELA?
Of Course!
Enhancing Student Learning
Through Verse
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Christy Wegmann
7th grade ELA and SS
Daniel Island School
jameschristine@bcsdschools.net
What the Governor Didn’t Know:
“Poetry asks us to pay attention- to
the world inside of us as well as the
world outside of ourselves. Bringing
poetry into the class-the writing and
reading of it- ensures that the
imagination has a role in students’
education.”
~ Jim Burke, Writing Reminders
“Poetry has forever reminded us
what it means to be human.”
~ Parker Palmer, Tom Vander Ark, Teaching With Fire
Using Poetry as a Write to
Learn Strategy
Writing poetry in content areas is
part of the process of learning, as
well as a product of learning.
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Telephone Poems:
 Write significant numbers down
the side of paper
~ telephone numbers
~ birth dates
~ historic dates
~ formulas
~ equations
Explain that each number
represents the number or syllables
or words to be written for that
line
Provide a topic to guide the
writing
THE BLACK DEATH~ BUBONIC PLAGUE
Black Death
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Fleas.
Unknown filthy culprits
decimating the European population.
Bodies ringed and rosy before the inevitable decay.
Everywhere
false cures spread.
Priests preached plague as punishment
Death.
The Great Depression
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9
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Depression
Many homeless and starving with no money or job
Dust Bowl
Wind like a tornado destroying everything in its path
California
People moving to look for jobs and new lives
The New Deal
Things get better, allowing people to live with hope
Poetry and Standards~ SC
Identify and explain the relationships among multiple causes
and multiple effects.
Evaluate multiple points of view or biases and attribute the
perspectives to the influences of individual experiences, societal
values, and cultural traditions.
Explain how political, social, and economic institutions are
similar or different across time and/or throughout the world.
South Carolina Social Studies Literacy Standards 2011
Poetry and Standards~ CCSS
Determine the central ideas of primary and secondary sources.
Write arguments focused on discipline –specific content
- Support claims with logical reasoning and relevant, accurate
data and evidence that demonstrates a strong understanding of
the topic
- use words, phrases and clauses to create cohesion and clarify
the relationships among claims, counterclaims, reasons and
evidence
Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of
historical events, scientific procedures/experiments and technical
processes.
Common Core State Standards~ Reading and Writing Literacy in
History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects 6-12 (2011)
“Writing requires knowledge and
focuses thought. In order to write
students must have something to say.
Students do not merely express
knowledge by writing, they also
discover knowledge. Writing is an
inherently integrative process,
combining the total intellectual
capacities of the writer.”
~C.F. Risinger “Improving Writing Skills Through Social Studies”
Effort Poems:
 Respond briefly to content
information
~ primary documents
~ art, pictures
~ character’s actions
~ lab results
~ diagrams
Share responses with partner
 Identify one key line in
response
 Choose 2 lines from each
table to share on sentence strips
Rearrange lines into a poem,
adding repetition & poetic
devices
“The use of the
senses in art is a
cognitive event…
the eye is part of
the mind.” ~ C.
Cornett, The Arts as Meaning
Makers: Integrating Literature
and the Arts Throughout the
Curriculum.
Try it now…
• Read your article with your group.
• Each person writes 1 or 2 lines from article.
(Can quote, paraphrase, or summarize.)
• Arrange the lines as a poem.
• Add poetic devices as appropriate
• Write lines on sentence strips.
(Rediscover the joy of sentence strips!)
• Post your poem on the wall.
Try it a different way…
• Read your article with your group
• Summarize your article as a haiku
5 – 7 – 5 (words or syllables)
• Read your haiku to the class
Where I’m From:
 based on George Ella Lyon’s poem
 can write about own life
 use format to incorporate biographical info
 explain causes of events
 describe motivations
Where I'm From
G. E. Lyon
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down!
I'm from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments-snapped before I budded -leaf-fall from the family tree
Idea:
Use “Where I’m From” poem
to show understanding of key
characters in a novel or play,
or to show understanding of
key historical figures
“Because it captures powerful
emotions in distilled responses
I have found poetry is a
particularly useful and engaging
vehicle for revealing the
complexities of a historical
moment.”
~ D.M. Meadows, “African-American Poetry and History:
Making the Connection”
Make It Now Poems:
 Read a type of poem or lyrics
typically written during a specific
time period
Brainstorm key ideas from poem
that show the era’s values
Rewrite the poem with ideas that
show today’s values
~ change point of view
~ change setting
~ change meaning or tone
“Onques mes ne fu soupris
De nule amour, ne destroiz,
Mais or m'ont dou tot conquis
Ses sens et sa bone foi.
Cors a gent et cler le vis,
Blanches mains et longuez doiz,
Douz semblant et simple ris:
Bien est faite en touz endroiz.
Pou la voi…”
Never was I so overcome
(Gontier de Soignies)
By any love, nor in distress,
But now I'm conquered totally
By her good sense and honesty.
Fair is her body, clear her face,
White her hands, and her fingers long.
Gentle bearing, tender smile:
Excerpt and translation from
Well-formed she is, yes, everywhere.
untitled 14th century French
I rarely see her…
Troubadour song
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al;
It was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal?
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Bing Crosby sings it on Youtube with Dorthea Lange Pictures: http://youtu.be/MZHEkU__Ijw
“Students
need a chance to assimilate
information, make connections, and
face whatever may still confuse
them. This kind of writing is a way
into or a means of learning, a way
into understanding through
articulating.” ~S. Sorenson, “Encouraging Writing
Achievement: Writing Across the Curriculum”
Poems for Two Voices:
Decide on two items to compare
~ people
~ animals
~ elements
~ values
~ mathematical properties
~ reactions/consequences
~emotions
~ countries
Create a Venn diagram to organize similarities
and differences
Write a part of the poem for each item to show
its unique qualities, one on the left side of the
paper, the other on the right
Write parts of the poem together to show the
items’ similarities on both sides of the paper
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Try it now…
Choose a partner
Choose two characters from a novel you’ve
both read
Write a two-voiced poem, letting those
characters reveal a key dilemma or theme in
the novel
Read your poem to the class
More Poems to Use
Six Room Poems
I AM Poems
~countries
~inventions
~landmarks
~ inanimate objects
~ formulas/ values
Adjust format to meet
needs of content
Use personification
Or As Many As You Want
Person
Place
Event
Emotion
Future
Warning
Brainstorm ideas for each room
Take key words, ideas to make
poem
Add figurative language
I am the Church
I see my wealth throughout Europe
I feel powerful and sometimes a bit corrupt
I stand at the center of everyone’s life
I control the king, the knights, the nobles, the
nobodies
I help the poor after myself
I hope the Holy Land will be regained
I’ll never stop collecting my tithes
I’ll be remembered with buildings, sculptures,
windows, pain
I am the Church
Joan
Soldier of God
Leader of French men
Woman of own passion
Fury burning her heart
Hotter than fire licking her toes
Generations of bloody war
All in God’s name
Her battles now finished
Her bravery only begun
Sacrificing life for right
God’s eyes will recall
Poem As a Door
If you expect it to be bolted,
it will be.
There is only one opening:
yourself as the key.
~Eve Merriam
Questions on Using Poetry to
Teach (or Assess) Content?
Sample 11-day “Unit”
Part 1:
Introductory
Activities
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Part 2:
Major “Content”
of the Work
being Studied
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Part 3:
Concluding
Activities
& Final Assessment
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Daily Lesson:
Goals,
Strategies,
Assessments
Presentation
of Projects
and/or Exam
Next week:
Kizzy Ann Stamps
Other civil-rights books
More on “units” that use YA Lit