Fall In Love With Poems
http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_index.asp
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Collaborative Poetry
Appreciation
• 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.
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How to Begin the Poetic
Experience
• Begin the unit by reading poems aloud to the
class, one or more per day for a few days.
• 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 want them to have copies of the poem give
it to them after the first reading and the brief
discussion that follows.
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Read Twice or Thrice
• 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.
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Ask What Struck You
• 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.
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What and What not to Focus
• Keep enjoyment of the poem itself the top priority.
• Mention figures of speech and other terminologies
if you think that makes it easy to discuss the
poems.
• When you read a second time ask the students to
listen for specific elements. For example, if
someone had pointed to a funny line, ask the
students to listen for other lines they think are
funny.
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Read and Write a Poem
Level One
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Read Some Nursery Rhymes
• Read some nursery rhymes children are familiar
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with.
Read a second or third time pausing for children to
give you the rhyming words.
Now read aloud only the rhyming words.
Mix up the rhyming words and ask the children to
match.
Ask the children to give you other rhyming words
for the one they find in the nursery rhyme.
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Syllable Clap
• Begin by telling students that while some words
rhyme, all words have one or more beats,
depending on how many word parts they contain.
• Demonstrate how to clap out the beats, or
syllables, in your first name. Clap your name out a
second time, but this time ask students to count the
number of times you clap.
• Tell students that the number of claps they counted
is the number of beats, or syllables, in your name.
Invite students to join you in clapping out the
beats in each of their first names.
• Have children use rhythm instruments or body
parts to beat outhttp://www.teachingstylesonline.com
the syllables.
Catch a Little Rhyme
Eve Merriam
•
Once upon a time
I caught a little rhyme
I set it on the floor
but it ran right out the door
I chased it on my bicycle
but it melted to an icicle
I scooped it up in my hat
but it turned into
a cat
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I caught it by the tail
but it stretched into a whale
I followed it in a boat
but it changed into a goat
When I fed it tin and paper
it became a tall skyscraper
Then it grew into a kite
and flew far out of sight...
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Word Family Rhyme Charts
• Copy the poem onto a piece of chart paper.
• Have students to circle each set of rhyming words
with contrasting colours.
• Use a separate piece of chart paper to write each
pair of rhyming words. Have students use markers
to underline the word endings that rhyme in each
pair.
• Guide students to notice that sometimes word
endings that rhyme are spelled the same and other
times they are spelled differently. Encourage the
discovery that word endings that look different
sometimes sound
the same.
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More Work with Rhymes
• Repeat this activity with other poems and stories
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that rhyme.
As you discover more rhyming words, add them to
the list of words that share the same word ending
sound.
If you wish, you may use a separate piece of chart
paper for each family of word endings.
Ask them to find nonsense rhyming words and use
a different colour marker to write them.
Display the word charts around the classroom.
Use the lists of rhyming words you generate to
help students write
their own rhyming poems.
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Read and Write a Poem
Level Two
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Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face
by Jack Prelutsky
• Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.
Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you'd be forced to smell your feet.
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• Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.
Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.
• Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place-be glad your nose is on your face!
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Activities
• Show a picture of some animals and their
"noses."
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Antennae
• In insects, the sense of smell is located
chiefly in the antennae.
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Amphibians
• Most amphibians (the group that includes
frogs, toads and salamanders) sense smell
using an organ inside their mouths.
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Class Discussion
• 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."
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Work in Groups
Work in groups of 3 and decide at least 3
activities you can ask the students to do.
Keep in mind the age and level of the students you
teach while planning the activities.
Think of a project work that you can give to
the students related to ‘nose’, ‘smell’, etc.
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Writing Poetry
Work with the handout.
http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_images/lesson301/all_together_now.pdf
Ask the whole class to work together.
Collect the individual lines from students, put them
in order — randomly or intentionally — and read the
poem aloud as a whole.
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Individual and Collaborative
Writing
For the whole class you say:
"Write a poetry line that includes a color followed
by the word 'as' and a comparison“
For the individual you say:
"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."
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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.
• Ask them to read poems specially suited for
choral reading.
• Ask them to read the poems written by
them.
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Read and Write a Poem
Level Three
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Emily Dickinson
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
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He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,-They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.
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Introduction
• Introduce the lesson by telling students that today
they will read a poem by Emily Dickinson, who
lived in Massachusetts in the 1800s and wrote
thousands of poems.
• Together as a class, read "A Bird came down the
Walk—" chorally.
• The students should recognize that there is a
consistent rhythm (or pattern of beats), like in a
song or nursery rhyme. You may want to have
your students count out the syllables (or beats)
with you.
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Short Measure
• The first two lines have 6 syllables, the third line 8
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syllables, and the fourth line 6 syllables.
Poets call this pattern "short measure" because
there are so few beats in each line.
Dickinson doesn't adhere strictly to the rules. The
fourth and fifth stanzas have additional—or
sometimes one too few—syllables in a few lines.
Many hymns are in short measure. With your
students, read or listen to a hymn.
You will find some hymns at http://www.ipl.org/
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Image and Metaphor
• Read the poem aloud again. Ask the students:
What is this poem about? Be sure they understand
that Dickinson is describing the physical qualities
of a bird and its behavior-hopping, eating, flying,
and so on.
• Show them paintings of birds, ask them to watch
birds and think of the birds' shape, feathers, and
features (eyes or beak, for example.)
• They can consider Qs such as; What would the
bird feel like to touch? How would you describe
this movement of the birds? How would you
describe the sound they make?
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Cluster Web
Give them the cluster web handout.
Ask the students to write "bird" in the center circle
and to fill in the circles around it with the words they
would use to describe a bird.
Then they should fill in the circles attached to those
words with the next words that come to mind.
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Example
feather
bird
light
air
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Second Reading
• Now, read the poem again with your
students and ask them how Dickinson
describes a bird. Does Dickinson describe
some of the same qualities they saw in the
images and found through the brainstorming
activity? Ask your students to think about
how Dickinson uses words to describe the
bird.
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Introduce Simile and Metaphor
Emily Dickinson compares two seemingly
unlike things.
"He glanced with rapid eyes / That hurried… ”
The eyes are treated like a creature, able to run around. Can you picture the
movement of the bird's eyes? How does this image add to your experience of the
line?
"They looked like frightened Beads"
The eyes are compared to "beads." What do beads look like? Why might
Dickinson compare the bird's eyes to beads? These "beads" are then given a
human characteristic—the quality of being frightened. Can eyes be
frightened? Does this mean the bird is frightened?
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"And he unrolled his feathers / And rowed him softer
home"
Here Dickinson describes the motion of a bird spreading its wings, but
now the wings become oars. Can you visualize the act of rowing?
Does this motion make you think of flying? Dickinson compares the
sky to the sea. What similarities are there between the two? Is flying
through the sky a "softer" motion than rowing through the water? In
what way?
"Butterflies… Leap, plashless as they swim"
In this line, the bird is now a butterfly, and the butterflies become fish
or dolphins jumping into the sea. Might flying be like swimming
through the air? Why might butterflies be "plashless" (or splashless)?
Do you make a splash when you leap through the air?
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Classroom Activities
• Now, to reinforce these ideas (and have
some fun), have your students act out the
poem together as a class. Begin with the
first line: what would a bird look like as it
"came down the Walk"? What is the birds'
stance, attitude, or movement? Continue to
the second and third lines ….
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Write a Poem
• Give them the ‘write a poem’ handout.
• Have them observe a living thing: a squirrel, a
beetle, ants, etc — just preferably not a bird.
• As they watch their object, have them fill out the
handout. Be sure they note how their animal or
insect moves and how it reacts to its environment.
• As they're working, give each student another
copy of the Web Cluster handout. The second part
of the worksheet asks them to make a web cluster
for their new object.
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Third Reading
• Now, gather everyone together back in your
classroom. Reread the Dickinson poem as a class
and review its meter. Here you should make
students aware of the poem's rhyming scheme:
ABCB. Ask the students to write a 2 stanza (or 8
line) poem for their animal using 2 metaphors and
the same meter and rhyming scheme as in
Dickinson's poem. They should use their
completed handout and web cluster to guide them.
Encourage the students to help one another count
out syllables and find rhyming words.
• Have the students share their poems with the class.
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Assessment
Ask students to submit a portfolio of their work
from this lesson, including their two web
clusters, Write a Poem! handout, and completed
poem. Assess them based on the rubric below,
granting point values as preferred.
1. Student participated fully in all activities.
2. Student contributed to class discussion.
3. Student demonstrated an understanding of
rhythm and meter.
4. Web clusters show connections between
objects/ideas.http://www.teachingstylesonline.com
Assessment
5. Write a Poem! handout shows careful
observation of an animal/insect.
6. Write a Poem! handout demonstrates an
understanding of "metaphor."
7. Story displays a synthesis of lessons
learned.
8. Poem uses 2 metaphors and appropriate
rhythm and rhyme.
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Read and Write Poems
Level Four
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Limericks
Read aloud the limerick. Read it again
silently and identify the main features.
There once was a fellow named Maun
With a broad grin he acted like a clown
With his blown up nose
And his funny pose
He became the laughing stock of the town.
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Limericks
1st, 2nd and last lines rhyme.
3rd and 4th lines rhyme.
There once was a fellow named Maun
With a broad grin he acted like a clown
With his blown up nose
And his funny pose
He became the laughing stock of the town.
And the rhythm is
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
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How to write a Limerick
Think of a name: Ram, Lal, Tim, John, etc.
List all the words that rhyme with that name.
Example: Name:
Rhyming words: Lal, call, tall, mall, fall, all, ball, etc.
Write the second line using one of the
rhyming words.
Create a funny incident with the last line.
Complete the third and fourth line of the funny
incident.
Example:
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This is one of the possibilities.
There once was a fellow named Lal,
He wanted very badly to grow tall
He hung from the gate
To win over his fate
Got a six inch bump hitting the wall.
(He has added 6 inches to himself but has not grown
taller in the way he expected.)
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Read and Write Poems
Level Five
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Read some Haiku Poems
Ask the students to recognize the main features:
• Very short: just three lines usually fewer than
twenty syllables long.
Descriptive: most haiku focus sharply on a detail of
nature or everyday life.
Personal: most haiku express a reaction to or
reflection on what is described.
Divided into two parts: as they read haiku aloud,
students should find that each includes a turning
point, often marked by a dash or colon, where the
poet shifts from description to reflection, or shifts
from close-up to a broader perspective.
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Rules of Haiku
• Form: Traditional Japanese haiku have seventeen
syllables divided into three lines 5, 7, 5,
respectively.
• Structure: Haiku divide into two parts, with a
break coming after the first or second line, so that
the poem seems to make two separate statements
that are related in some unexpected or indirect
way.
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Rules of Haiku
• Language: Haiku should include what Japanese
poets call a kigo -- a word that gives the reader a
clue to the season being described. The kigo can
be the name of a season (autumn, winter) or a
subtler clue, such as a reference to the harvest or
new fallen snow.
• Subject: Haiku present a snapshot of everyday
experience, revealing an unsuspected significance
in a detail of nature or human life. Haiku poets
write for a popular audience and give their
audience a new way to look at things they have
probably overlooked
in the past.
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Haiku Warm-up
• Brainstorm a glossary of words, e.g. related to
season: robin, crocus, Final Four for spring;
heatwave, fireworks, grasshopper for summer;
jack-o-lantern, harvest, kickoff for autumn; icicle,
hibernate, holly for winter
• For each season, have students choose an
occurrence that might be the subject of a haiku
and brainstorm descriptive language that would
help a reader visualize that scene.
• List them on the chalk board.
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Writing Haiku
• Have students write a haiku based on some
personal experience, using at least one of
the words they have brainstormed in class.
• Pair students to edit and suggest
improvements to one another's work, then
hold an in-class haiku festival, having each
student read his or her poem aloud.
• Ask students to publish their Haiku online.
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Read and Write Poems
Level Six
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Introduce Poetic Devices
Read some poems aloud and introduce…
• Stanza: A group of lines in a poem
considered as a unit. Stanzas often function
like paragraphs in prose. Each stanza states
and develops a single main idea.
• Couplet: Two consecutive lines of poetry
that work together.
http://www.teachingstylesonline.com
More Poetic Devices
• Alliteration: The use of words with the same or
similar beginning sounds, e.g., Peter Piper picked
a peck of pickled peppers.
• Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate
sounds, e.g., ding dong, boom, swish, gulp, etc.
• Personification: A literary technique in which an
author assigns human characteristics to inanimate
things or abstract ideas.
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Class Activities
• Give students some poems and ask them to
identify example of each poetic device.
• Divide the class into two teams and create a
game of the activity. See which team can
find an example of each poetic device first
and keep score.
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One Poem Different Levels
• The same poem can be used differently at
different levels.
• For example, choose a poem from
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Some Useful EDSITEment Links
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http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_index.asp
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=301
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=354
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=404
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=604
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=259
http://www.teachingstylesonline.com
Some Useful Resources
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http://www.teachingstylesonline.com
http://www.researchcompanion.com
http://www.askrangoo.com/faq
http://www.want2learn.com
http://www.coursesuseek.com
http://www.what2pursue.blogspot.com
• http://bestbooks4u.blogspot.com
• If you have any questions send them to
http://www.askrangoo.com
http://www.teachingstylesonline.com
Thank You EDSITEment
EDSITEment is sponsored by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, a small
government agency and all their materials are
free to educators for classroom use. Their
lesson plans and websites have been
reviewed and recommended by a classroom
teacher and a scholar in the subject
area. EDSITEment is supported with funding
from the MCI (Verizon) Foundation.
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