Poetry

I like to get kids writing poetry. Maybe you could work with second grade teachers on a poetry writing unit - haiku, shaped, cinquain, or even metered lines. Rhyming couplets are fun too. My ninth grade son had to write a class poem the other day. The teacher gave them a topic and each student wrote a couplet. They then arranged them into one longer poem. How about taking some of the poetry and rewriting them into "Readers Theatre".Poetry works great for this and kids like "performing" them. You can then "challenge" the students to find other poems that they can rewrite as a Readers Theatre. I do it every year with my intermediate students and they love it. Also have them listen to famous poets reading some of their poems.

Caroline Feller Bauer has some great poetry ideas in her books, too. Here's something that I've tried with 2nd-5th grades, and it works equally well with all. I call it the "Hot Cocoa Cafe". Based on the old 1950's coffee houses, kids select a poem, copy, and practice it for a week or two, then they perform it in the library's "Hot CC". After their performance they earn a sample-size cup of hot cocoa! Caroline Feller Bauer, Presenting Readers' Theater. Wilson, 1987 A great resource. One poem that started me on readers' theater which I found in there is WHAT IS PURPLE by Mary O'Neill. I used that as the framework for doing all of the colors: What is red. What is orange. I divided the poems into parts. The kids love it. The Bauer book has great ideas for involving the students. I also use Alvin Schwartz, The Green Grass Grows All Around. Great poems and Americana.

Limericks From Leslie Opp-Beckman
URL: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/limericks.leslie.html

INSTRUCTIONS - Part A
1) Students work in pairs or a small group. Each group receives a limerick that has been cut into strips (along with its accompanying illustration if there is one). They then put the strips of paper into what they think might be the correct order.

INSTRUCTIONS - Part B
1) Across the top of a blank sheet of paper, each student writes 5-6 places s/he's lived or visited.... cities, provinces/states, countries, addresses, etc. 2) Choose the 2 places that are easiest to rhyme (this may take some experimenting and more than one try). Students can help each other "brainstorm" rhyming words which they then write in columns underneath the place names. This can be done using only the last syllable of the name. Example: Beijing: bring, fling, king, Ming, opening, ring, sing, sling, sting, thing ... 3) Using one or both of the templates, students write limericks by filling in the blanks with their own rhyming words. Use past tense.

Example: There once was a man from Beijing. All his life he hoped to be King. So he put on a crown, Which quickly fell down. That small silly man from Beijing.

There once was a ______________ from __________________. All the while s/he hoped _______________________________. So s/he _______________________________. And _________________________________. That ___________________ from ___________________.
 * Template - A:**

I once met a _________________ from ___________________. Every day s/he _______________________________________. But whenever s/he ______________________. The _________________________________. That strange ___________________ from ___________________.
 * Template - B:**

[|MORE LIMERICKS] || [|PIZZAZ!] || [|OPPortunities in ESL]

E-mail: leslieob@oregon.uoregon.edu Leslie Opp-Beckman, Technology Coordinator and ESL Instructor 5212 [|University of Oregon], [|American English Institute] Eugene, Oregon 97403-5212 USA Leslie Opp-Beckman, copyright 1994-2002. Permission to copy and distribute for in-class, non-profit use only. //This page last updated: 09 April 2002//

FREE VERSE

Lesson 24

__Free verse__ is just what it says it is - poetry that is written without proper rules about form, rhyme, rhythm, meter, etc. The greatest American writer of free verse is probably Walt Whitman. His great collection of free verse was titled __Leaves of Grass__ and it was published in 1855. In free verse the writer makes his/her own rules. The writer decides how the poem should look, feel, and sound. Henry David Thoreau, a great __philosopher__, explained it this way, ". . . perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." It may take you a while to "hear your own drummer," but free verse can be a great way to "get things off your chest" and express what you really feel. Here are some examples: Winter Poem Nikki Giovanni once a snowflake fell on my brow and i loved it so much and i kissed it and it was happy and called its cousins and brothers and a web of snow engulfed me then i reached to love them all and i squeezed them and they became a spring rain and i stood perfectly still and was a flower Lyrical Lesson: Free Verse 1. Write a paragraph or paragraphs entitled "Who Am I?" 2. Go back and break the paragraph into lines 3. As you do this revise the lines until they look, feel, and sound right to you. 4. Complete a self-portrait to reflect the "real" you. Scan the picture into your document. Your teacher will show you how. 5. Use the optic camera and read your poem aloud and save it on the computer. Optional Lesson: 1. Take your web and ideas about the different cultures (from Lesson 2). Choose one idea from the web (beliefs, custom, clothing, environment or traditions). Write a paragraph a on this topic. 2. Break the paragraph into lines or stanzas, if you want to express more than one idea. 3. Use a magazine or your own original artwork to illustrate your idea. 4. In your class, compile the same cultures together to form one large poem.