Fall In Love With Poems

1
Fall In Love With Poems

• http//edsitement.neh.gov/lesson_index.asp
• http//www.teachingstylesonline.com

2
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.

3
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.

4
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.

5
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.

6
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.

7
Read and Write a Poem

• Level One

8
Read Some Nursery Rhymes

• Read some nursery rhymes children are familiar
  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.

9
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 out the syllables.

10
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

11

• 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...

12
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.

13
More Work with Rhymes

• Repeat this activity with other poems and stories
  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.

14
Read and Write a Poem

• Level Two

15
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.
  

16

• 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!

17
Activities

• Show a picture of some animals and their "noses."

18
Antennae

• In insects, the sense of smell is located chiefly
  in the antennae.

19
Amphibians

• Most amphibians (the group that includes frogs,
  toads and salamanders) sense smell using an organ
  inside their mouths.

20
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."

21
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.

22
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.

23
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."

24
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.

25
Read and Write a Poem

• Level Three

26
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.

27

• 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.

28
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.

29
Short Measure

• The first two lines have 6 syllables, the third
  line 8 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 additionalor
  sometimes one too fewsyllables 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/

30
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?

31
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.

32
Example
33
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.

34
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 characteristicthe quality of being
  frightened. Can eyes be frightened? Does this
  mean the bird is frightened?

35

• "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?

36
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
  .

37
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.

38
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.

39
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.
• Student participated fully in all activities.
• Student contributed to class discussion.
• Student demonstrated an understanding of rhythm
  and meter.
• Web clusters show connections between
  objects/ideas.

40
Assessment

• Write a Poem! handout shows careful observation
  of an animal/insect.
• Write a Poem! handout demonstrates an
  understanding of "metaphor."
• Story displays a synthesis of lessons learned.
• Poem uses 2 metaphors and appropriate rhythm and
  rhyme.

41
Read and Write Poems

• Level Four

42
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.
•  

43
Limericks

• 1st, 2nd and last lines rhyme.
• 3rd and 4th lines rhyme.
• 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

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.
44
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

45
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.)

46
Read and Write Poems

• Level Five

47
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.

48
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.

49
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.

50
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.

51
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.

52
Read and Write Poems

• Level Six

53
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.

54
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.

55
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.

56
One Poem Different Levels

• The same poem can be used differently at
  different levels.
• For example, choose a poem from

57
Some Useful EDSITEment Links

• 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

58
Some Useful Resources

• 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

59
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.

60
This powerpoint was kindly donated to
www.worldofteaching.com http//www.worldofteac
hing.com is home to over a thousand powerpoints
submitted by teachers. This is a completely free
site and requires no registration. Please visit
and I hope it will help in your teaching.