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Poetry
Study
|
For grades 2-5
This unit is based on the folllowing
book-- Random House Book of Poetry for Children: A Treasury of 572
Poems for Today’s Child selected by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by
Arnold Lobel |
Structure of poem study for each poem:
Read the title and poem aloud while the children listen.
Ask them what they heard – this is narration. They tell back all they understood from the poem. This may include the topic, descriptions, specific words and images.
Read the poem again, and repeat the narration.
Hopefully this time the children can offer even more details.
Allow them to ask questions about things that are still unclear.
You can ask specific questions of the poem as well if you want to draw out certain aspects of the poem. For more help, use this Responding to Poetry handout. This is also where you will insert the questions listed below in the unit study.
The child can read the poem aloud now, if you desire.
For each theme, there are at least two choices of notebooking pages. The child can copy the appropriate poem onto the themed paper for handwriting practice or for copywork.
Personification
Definition: A form of figurative language when a thing or abstract concept is given human characteristics.
Questions for each poem below: What is the thing that is being personified? What human attributes or abilities is it given? Why does the poet use personification?
1. Things to Do If You’re a Subway, Bobbi Katz p. 92
2. Fog, Carl Sandburg p. 96
This poem is in the public domain, so a notebooking page with the poem’s text is included. The student can draw a picture to go along with the poem.
3. Paper Dragons, Susan Allan Schmetlz p. 40
4. Steam Shovel, Charles Malam p. 216
5. Dandelion, Hilda Conkling p. 25
Kite 1 Notebooking
Page
Kite 2 Notebooking
Page
Imagery
Definition: Descriptive words and phrases used to
create a mental picture (image) in the reader’s mind. Visual imagery is the most
common, but imagery can also appeal to the other senses – touch, hearing, smell,
or taste.
Questions for each poem below: Identify all the imagery in the poem. What senses are being used (sight, sound, touch, smell, or taste)? Why does the poet use imagery instead of simply using a single adjective?
1. A Dragonfly, Eleanor Farjeon p. 75
2. The Rain Has Silver Sandals, May Justus p. 29
3. The Toaster, William Jay Smith p.217
4. Dreams, Langston Hughes p. 225
5. Keep a Poem in Your Pocket, Beatrice Schenk de Regniers p. 226
6. Concrete Mixers, Patricia Hubbell p. 94
Rain Notebooking Page
Dragonfly
Notebooking Page
Poems of Imagination
These poems require you to read between the lines
and imagine alongside the character in the poem.
Questions for each poem below: What does the character in the poem say and what does he/she actually mean? How is imagination used in this poem? Why doesn’t the poet tell you that the character in the poem is using his/her imagination? Is it easy to tell that the character is using his/her imagination? What clues do you have?
1. People Upstairs, Ogden Nash p. 93
2. One Day When We Went Walking, Valerie Hobbs p. 129
3. They’re Calling, Felice Holman p. 139
4. The Runaway, Robert Frost p. 138
5. Poem: The Bed Book, Sylvia Plath p. 217
One Day When We Went Walking Notebooking Page
Bed Notebooking Page
Poems of Sound – alliteration, assonance,
consonance, onomatopoeia,
rhyme, nonsense words
Definitions:
Alliteration is the repetition of beginning consonant sounds, as in
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds, as in
Consonance is the repetition of final consonant sounds, as in
Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates an actual sound, as in
Questions for each poem below: Identify the alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in the poems below. (It may be helpful to make a copy of the poem, and let the child highlight various sound elements.) What do these sound elements add to the poem? What other words could be used to express the same ideas? If they were not there, how would the poem be different?
1. Eletelphony, Laura Richards p. 192
2. Antonio, Laura Richards p. 191
3. Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll p. 170
Download an MP3 of this poem : http://librivox.org/jabberwocky-by-lewis-carroll/
This poem is in the public domain, so a notebooking page with the poem’s text is included. The student can draw a picture of the Jabberwocky beside the poem.
4. Fishes Evening Song, Dahlov Ipcar p. 78
5. Sea Shell, Amy Lowell p. 29
Poems that Tell a Story
(Narrative Poems)
Definition: A narrative poem is one that tells a
story.
Questions for each poem below: What is the story being told? Go through the events in order. How does the form of a poem add to the story? Would this story be better told in prose (not a poem)? Try telling it in prose. Compare it to the poem. Which is more interesting? Most of these narrative poems are longer than the poems in other categories. Why are narrative poems usually long? Do they have to be long?
1. Colonel Fazackerly, Charles Causley p. 204
2. The Wrong Start, Marchette Chute p. 132
3. I Wish I Could Meet the Man that Knows, John Ciardi p. 134
4. Mummy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast, John Ciardi p. 147
5. Patience, Bobbi Katz p. 149
6. Daddy Fell into the Pond, Alfred Noyes p. 156
7. Smart, Shel Silverstein p. 157
Top Blank
Notebooking Page
Lined Paper Notebooking Page
For these poems that tell a story, have your child draw the story or a scene from the story.
Repetition (of words or phrases)
Definition: Repetition is the deliberate use of
the same words or phrases multiple times to achieve a sense of expectation. The
reader comes to expect the word to be repeated. Then the poet can continue to
use the word or phrase with one effect or choose to not use that expected word
for another effect.
Questions for each poem below: What words are repeated? (Make a copy of the poem for the children to mark.) Why do you think the poet chose to repeat these particular words instead of others? Experiment with repeating other words instead. What is the effect? What does the repetition achieve (emphasis, feeling of boredom, feeling of motion, etc.)?
1. Feather or Fur, John Becker p. 69
2. The Yak, Jack Prelutsky p. 197
3. The Secret Song, Margaret Wise Brown p. 24
4. Every Time I Climb a Tree, David McCord p.119
5. Clickbeetle, Mary Ann Hoberman p. 193
Symmetry/Pattern
Definition: Symmetry is the deliberate use of a
balanced pattern either in words or ideas. Symmetry may include repetition.
Questions for each poem below: What symmetry is used in each poem? Is repetition a part of it? How does the symmetrical pattern add to the poem’s meaning or feeling? Try recreating the poem without the symmetry. Does it have the same effect? Do you personally like things to be orderly and symmetrical? Or do you prefer things to be jagged, messy, and asymmetrical?
1. River Winding, Charlotte Zolotow, p. 28
2. I Heard a Bird Sing, Oliver Herford p. 49
3. City, City, Marci Ridlan p. 91
4. The Little Boy and the Old Man, Shell Silverstein p. 161
5. Thanksgiving, Ivy O. Eastwick p. 47
Ideas for Composing
These ideas can be used all at the end as a culminating activity or scattered among the poem lessons. The students can write complete poems or just work on composing poetically – using poetic language. Writing with elements of poetry makes for more descriptive and interesting prose writing. So if your children don’t actually write a poem, know that these concepts carry over well into other facets of writing.
1. Personification
Choose an object and describe how it “behaves” using human terms.
Example – The washing machine angrily scrubs the laundry and in a fit of temper swings it madly around.
A useful resource is this website. Click on Nature Personified in the left hand column.
2. Imagery Using Five Senses
Choose something to describe. Seasons, a color, or an activity work well. Describe it using all five senses. If necessary, use a list with starters like these:
Looks like
Smells like
Sounds like
Tastes like
Feels like
This website may spark your creativity
3. Using the Imagination
Choose an object from nature that you like to play pretend with. Describe it using your imagination. See if others can guess what object you are describing.
Example – An acorn: A stiff, brown fairy cap was lost on the path under the oak tree.
4. Sounds
Choose a machine or animal that makes noise. Create new words to describe the sounds it makes. Try to include rhyme and rhythm to match the sounds.
This webpage has some good ideas and examples.