(1) Poetry Lesson 4
(2) Poetry Lesson 4
My Dog (p.110), Postman’s Song (p. 76), and Stopping by the
Woods on a Snowy Evening (p.63) from The Bill Martin Jr. Big
Book of Poetry
We know that not all poems have rhyme; some are
free verse. We know that some rhyming words look
alike, but not always. Finally we learned that a poem
written in rhyme can help us predict words. That helps
us understand the poem and be better readers.
In our last lesson, we talked about rhyme. What
is rhyme?
Allow student responses. Guide them to conclude that
rhyme is repeated patterns created by similar sounds in
words, usually in the ending syllables.
Let’s look at what we have already discovered
about rhyme.
Display Appendix 1 “Rhyming Time! And go over the first
three points together. Point to the examples and allow
students to provide more.
Today we’re going to talk about the patterns that
rhyme creates in poetry. Patterns create music and
rhythm. Because rhyming poems use patterns, they
are basically creating music. Sometimes the patterns
create fast music. Sometimes it is slow with slows down
reading the poem. A break in the pattern can even
bring a poem to a stop. Not every line in a rhyming
poem has to rhyme, and these non-rhyming lines also
form part of the pattern. The poems we read in the
last lesson all used rhyming words in every other line.
(3) Poetry Lesson 4
(4) Poetry Lesson 4
Let’s read a poem with a simple pattern.
Read the poem“My Dog” by Marchette Chute
together, modeling open hands for the rests and claps
for the rhymes. Repeat for the second and third
stanzas, pointing out that all of the lines rhyme in
stanza three. Make a snap-clap rhythm for stanza
three to differentiate the two different rhymes.
Display “My Dog” by Marchette Chute
Look at the first four lines of the poem. Can
you find the rhyming words? That’s right! The
words “low” and “throw” rhyme. They end the
second and fourth lines. What about the first
and third lines? To these words rhyme?
Read “scrubby and “back”
Let’s read the whole poem together, making
music with the rhymes!
Read the whole poem again, using the rest, clap, and snap
beats to mark the rhythm and rhymes.
They don’t so if there were a pattern that we
could clap at the end of each line, it would go
“rest, clap, rest, clap” for lines one through four.
Let’s read it and clap out the beat.
(5) Poetry Lesson 4
(6) Poetry Lesson 4
Display “Postman’s Song” by Margaret Wise Brown.
This next poem has a very complex pattern.
Let’s look at it.
This poem has a different rhyming pattern. Let’s
find the pattern.
Guide the students to recognize that the pattern follows four
lines until the final stanza, which is two and two. Designate a
snap-clap-pat knees rhythm and read the poem using the
different sounds for each rhyming pattern.
Do you hear the music? What effect does this
rhyming pattern have on readers?
Allow student responses.
Repeat the lesson with Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening by Robert Frost. Point out how line three links with
the following stanza through rhyme.
We looked at three different poems that use
three different patterns of rhyme. They all
created different music and rhythms that we
were able to rest, clap, snap, and pat out. The
rhyme created rhythms that affected the way
we read the poems. Let’s look at our chart and
add what we learned about rhyme in poetry.
Refer to points four and five of the Appendix chart and go
over examples.