Genre Presentation:  Poetry
 
 

Poetry can serve as an invitation to celebrate language, enhancing and enriching our appreciation for the power of words to capture the essence of things. It is also a wonderful conveyer of emotions -- extending and intensifying everyday experiences. As such, poetry can delight our funny bones, touch our hearts, titillate our senses, and heighten our awareness. Poetry is also significant for the classroom, as it almost by its very nature invites responses from children.

Perhaps poetry is best defined in poetry:

What is poetry? Who knows?
Not the rose, but the scent of the rose;
Not the sky, but the light of the sky;
Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly;
Not the sea, but the sound of the sea;
Not myself, but what makes me
See, hear, and feel something that prose
Cannot; and what is it, who knows?

Eleanor Farjeon

Look at various anthologies and picture book poems (either one you brought in our one from my collection).

What is it that makes these books poetry rather than prose.  Look at a poem.

• What is poetic about this text?
• How might you classify your poem?
• Who might be interested in or excited about this poem?

attributes of poetry

types of poetry

What's Up? or  Why do young kids love poetry but by the fifth grade turn and run from a poem?

Using the same poems get into small groups

• Read your poem (or part of the poem if it is long to your group)
• Discuss the four poems that were looked at.
• Choose one poem to share with the whole class.

Rhythm    Rhyme     Alliteration      Assonance     Onomatopoeia
Repetition      Imagery      Figurative     Language
Visual Attributes/Shape      Emotional Force
 

Rhythm --

"It doesn't always have to rhyme

But there's the repeat of a beat somewhere" Eve Merriam

 
"Love that Boy" Walter Dean Myers

Rhyme "Lone Dog" Irene Mcleod

Alliteration "Galoshes" Rhoda Bacmeister

Assonance "Song of the Pop-Bottlers" Morris Bishop

Onomatopoeia "Our Washing Machine" Patricia Hubbell

Repetition "Pickety Fence" David McCord
 

What functions do rhyme and sound serve in these poems?  For the author, the reader/listener, the teacher?

Imagery -- "Peach" Rose Rauter
 
 

Figurative Language -- "the drum" Nikki Giovanni

    Simile, metaphor, comparison Louder Than a Clap of Thunder (Writing with the Writers)
 
 

Shape (concrete poetry) -- "Chocolate Dreams" Arnold Adoff
 
 

Emotional Force -- "Harlem" Langston Hughes
 
 

 5. Poetry in the Classroom

Children's Poetry Preferences: humorous, light verse with rhyme and sounds, distinctive beats. Narrative and limericks are most popular.  Casey at the Bat ("Favorite Poem Project")

• Creative arts and poetry
• Poetry and movement/creative dramatics
• Poetry and prose
• Poetry across the curriculum; GongGong and Susie by Janet Wong

6. Look at poetry anthology. Form groups of 3; each group look at one poem/book.

Discuss a way of integrating this poem into the curriculum.  How might you use this poem in the classroom? 

• First brainstorm ideas.  Could you use this connected to what you are doing in history, science, language arts...
• Choose one idea and flesh it out

For fast moving groups discuss the following

• Style, structure, use of language
• Emotions, meaning, and symbolism: what does the poem mean to you, how does it make you feel
• How do the text and illustration work together, is anything added, changed by having the graphic element?

• What is the age-level of this book?
• How many poems are included?
• What types of poems are included?
• How many poets are represented?
• What is the quality of the poetry?
• Are there contemporary poems as well as old favorites?
• What is the subject matter of the poems?
• How are the poems arranged and organized?
• How adequate are the indexes in helping the reader find a poem?
• How helpful are the introduction and commentaries?
• Has the compiler achieved the stated or implied purpose of the collection?
• Are the illustrations and format appropriate for the poems and age appeal of the collection?

from Huck, Hepler, Hickman, and Kiefer. Children's Literature in the Elementary Classroom

8. The orality of poetry

Charles Smith

 

Personal poems:

• choose an emotional event (from your life or from a book or a film...)
• write down some of the occurances/sights/contexts surrounding this event
• read over the occurances and jot down how they make you feel
• go back through the two lists and where you can substitute figurative and descriptive language
• choose some of the lines from your list of feelings and occurances and place them in an order which is meaningful to you
• read back through; is there any language which can be changed to add rhythm and flow to the words?

Ten Kinds of Poems to Collect

• Poems that your students will enjoy
• Poems with a wide range of forms and poetic devices
• Poems that relate to the books you share with students
• Scary poems to read in the dark.
• Poems for choral reading
• Poems set to music or poems to sing
• Poems with sound effects or participation
• Poems that might serve as structures for writing
 
from Carol Fisher. Fanfare, 1993

Love That Boy

Walter Dean Myers

Love that boy
like a rabbit love to run
I said I love that boy
like a rabbit loves to run
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him

"Hey there, son!"

 

 

He walk like his grandpa
grins like his uncle Ben
I said he walk like his grandpa
and grins like his uncle Ben
Grins when he happy

when he sad he grins again

The pickety fence

David McCord

 

The pickety fence

The pickety fence

Give is a lick it's

The pickety fence

Give it a lick it's

A clickety fence

Give it a lick it's

A lickety fence

Give it a lick

Give it a lick

Give it a lick

With a rickety stick

Pickety

pickety

Pickety

Pick

Lone Dog

Irene McLeod

 

 

I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog and lone,

I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own!

I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;

I love to sit and bay at the moon and keep fat souls from sleep.
 
 

Galoshes

Rhonda Bacmeister

 

Susie's galoshes

Make splishes and sploshes

And slooshes and sloshes

As Susie steps slowly along in the slush.

 

They stamp and they tramp

On the ice and the concrete

They get stuck in the muck and the mud:

But Susie likes much best to hear

 

The slippery slush

As it slooshes and sloshes,

And splishes and sploshes

All around her galoshes!

Song of the Pop-Bottlers

Morris Bishop

 

Pop bottles, pop-bottles

in pop shops;

The pop-bottles Pop bottles

Poor Pop drops

 

When Pop drops pop-bottles

Pop-bottles plop!

Pop-bottle-tops topple!

Pop mops slop!

 

Stop! Pop'll drop bottle!

Stop, Pop stop!

When Pop bottles pop-bottles,

Pop-bottles pop!

 

Our Washing Machine

Patricia Hubbell

 

 

Our washing machine went wishity whirr

Whisity whisity whisity whirr

One day at noon it went whisity click

Whisity whisity whisity click

Click grr click grr click

Call the repairman

Fix it... Quick!

Peach

Rose Rauter

Touch it to your check and it's soft

as a velvet newborn mouse

who has to strive

to be alive.

Bite in, Runny

honey

blooms on your tongue --

as if you've bitten open

a whole hive.

The drum

Nikki Giovanni
 
 

daddy says the world is

a drum tight and hard

and i told him

i'm gonna beat

out my own rhythm

Harlem

Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over --

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Poems and movement

 

Hello and good-bye

 

Hello and good-bye

Hello and good-bye

When I'm in a swing

Swinging low and then high,

Good-bye to the ground

Hello to the sky

 

Hello to the rain

Good-bye to the sun,

Then hello again sun

When the rain is all done.

 

In blows the winter,

Away the birds fly.

Good-bye and hello

Hello and good-bye.

 

Mary Ann Hoberman

 

---

Wind Song

 

When the wind blows

the quiet things speak.

Some whisper, some clang,

Some creak.

 

Grasses swish.

Treetops sigh.

Flags slap

and snap at the sky.

Wires on poles

whistle and hum.

Ashcans roll.

Windows drum.

 

When the wind goes--

suddenly

then, the quiet things

are quiet again.

 

Lian Moore

---

Hiccup Cure

 

Hic...

Hic...

Hic...

Hic...

Want to cure your hiccups quick?

Stick out your tongue and bite your lip.

Hold your breath and shake one hip.

Pull back your left foot and kick up.

Now, you see, we've cured your hiccup.

Nothing much to it -- don't you feel swell?

Hic...

Oh well...

 

Shel Silverstein

---

Questions

 

What did you do?

Where did you go?

Why weren't you back

An hour ago?

 

How come your shirt's

Ripped on the sleeve?

Why are you wet?

When did you leave?

 

What scratched your face?

When did you eat?

Where are your socks?

Look at your feet!

 

How did you get

Paint in your hair?

Where have you been?

Don't kick that chair!

 

Say something now.

I'll give you to ten.

 

"See if I ever

Come home again."

 

Marci Ridlon

Eight Balloons

Eight balloons no one was buyin'

All broke loose one afternoon.

Eight balloons with strings a-flyin'

Free to do what they wanted to.

One flew up to touch the sun -- POP!

One thought highways might be fun -- POP!

One took a nap in a cactus pile -- POP!

One stayed to play with a careless child -- POP!

One tried to taste some bacon fryin' -- POP!

One fell in love with a porcupine -- POP!

One looked close in a crocodile's mouth -- POP!

One sat around til his air ran out -- Whoosh!

Eight balloons no one was buyin' --

They broke loose and away they flew,

Free to float and free to fly

And free to pop where they wanted to.

Shel Silverstein

Get set, ready now, jump right in

Bounce and kich and giggle and spin

Listen to the rope when it hits the ground

Listen to that clappedy-slappedy sound

Jump right up when it tells you to Come back down, whenever you do

Count to a hundred, count by ten

Start to count all over again

That's what jumping is all about

Get set, ready now,

jump

right

out!

 

 

Eloise Greenfield