Week 1: Silly Poems
Texts: Where the Sidewalk Ends, Flamingos on the Roof
Additional Texts for Extension: Truckery Rhymes, Don’t Bump the Glump! And Other Fantasies
Materials: Book with poem, Pre-printed poetry booklet, crayons or colored pencils
Sample Lesson
I will begin by introducing the concept of visualization and displaying the word “visualize” on the board. I will explain to students that good readers visualize as they read. Visualizing is creating mind movies or pictures as you read. This helps you to better understand what is happening in a story or poem. Before reading the poems, I will tell students that we are reading poems that are silly or funny. I will display the poem “One Inch Tall” from Where the Sidewalk Ends on the board and read it aloud. Then, I will model visualizing and illustrating the first stanza of the poem. I will reread the stanza aloud and say, “I picture a little, tiny person. Like imagine Mrs. Draper as one inch tall (motions with fingers). If I were that small, I would be able to take a crumb from a cake! I wouldn’t even need the whole cake, just a little piece. (Closes eyes) I picture a crumb of chocolate cake. Even that much would fill me up because I’m so small! It would take me all week to eat that one crumb. Now if I wanted to draw a picture or illustrate this, I would draw a tiny version of Mrs. Draper holding a crumb of chocolate cake (draws picture as I narrate on the board).” When I visualize, I will emphasize that I am focusing on only one or two lines at a time.
Next, I will read the second stanza aloud twice pausing in between reads. I will have students close their eyes (if they want to) and picture what is happening. I will remind them that they do not have to visualize the whole stanza, but they can pick one part to visualize just as I did when I modeled. After students have had a chance to visualize, I will call on a few students to share their visualizations with the class. I will encourage students in their visualizations and the only time I will correct students is when they are totally off topic and not visualizing the poem at hand.
Finally, I will read the third stanza aloud twice once again pausing between reads. I will give students a chance to visualize independently before participating in a turn and talk. Students will have the opportunity to share with a partner what they visualized happening in the poem. I will monitor students’ visualizations and select a few students to share aloud with the class.
We will end the lesson with students returning to their seats with their poetry booklet. The poem will be printed on one side, and they will pick one of the lines that they visualized to illustrate on the opposite page.
We will repeat this exercise throughout the week using the poems “Spaghetti” and “Invisible Boy” from Where the Sidewalk Ends. We will also use the poem “Alphabet Sherbert” from Flamingos on the Roof. These poems will be printed in the students’ booklets. Additional poems that we could use as an extension if we have additional time are “Sick,” “Snowman,” and “The Edge of the World” from Where the Sidewalk Ends, and “Bug Show” from Flamingos on the Roof.
Week 2: Shape and Concrete Poetry
Texts: Wet Cement and Ode to the Commode
Additional Texts for Extension: Flicker Flash
Materials: Book with poem, Pre-printed poetry booklet, crayons or colored pencils
Sample Lesson
We will begin the lesson by reminding students of how to visualize. I will remind them that good readers visualize what they are reading so that they better understand what is happening. I will tell them that you can visualize in poetry and fiction stories, but that these next few weeks we are going to practice visualizing using poetry. This week we will be focusing on shape and concrete poetry. I will tell students that concrete poems are poems that use one word to create a poem while shape poems write about their subject in the shape of what the poem is about. The book of poems that we are reading today, Wet Cement, has a concrete poem and a shape poem that are about the same thing beside each other. Before we read our poems for the day, I will read the author’s note at the beginning about word paintings. This author’s note helps to further explain concrete and shape poems. As we read each poem, I will ask students to guess what the poem is about.
The first poem that we will read is “Clock.” I will display the poem and ask students what they think this poem is going to be about. I will then read the poem aloud. First, I will give students a chance to visualize before modeling my own visualization. I will tell students that I picture students who are sitting at the edge of their seats waiting for class to be over so that they can go home. Then, I will ask students to share their visualizations with the class.
Next, we will read “Hopscotch.” Before reading the poem, I will ask what they think the poem will be about. Then, I will read the poem aloud making sure to read from the bottom to the top of the page. I will ask students to turn and talk with their partners about what they visualize happening in the poem. I will monitor their conversations to select a few students to share with the class what they visualize.
Last, we will read the poem “Hanger.” I will read it aloud and allow students to turn and talk. This time, students will not share their thoughts with the whole group, but they will instead return to their seats to draw their visualizations in their booklets.
We will repeat the exercise throughout the week using the poems “Dominoes,” “Firefly,” and “Balloon” from Wet Cement. We will also use the poems “What About Me,” “A Twisted Tale,” “Going Up,” “Hi-Ho, Silverware,” “I Chews You,” and “Cool. Sweet… But Enough About Me” from Ode to the Commode. When we read this book, I will remind students that concrete poems are poems made only out of the word that the poem is about. Each day, we will focus on three poems.
Week 3: Science Poetry
Texts: Predator and Prey; Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings; Song of the Water Boatman
Additional Texts for Extension: Oodles of Animals, Insectlopedia: Poems and paintings, Unbeelievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings, and Bees, Snails, & Peacock tails: Patterns & Shapes... Naturally
Materials: Book with poem, Pre-printed poetry booklet, crayons or colored pencils
Sample Lesson
I will begin the lesson by asking students what they remember about visualizing. I will ask a few students to share about what they remember about visualizing. After they have concluded that visualizing is creating mind pictures or movies about a poem or story, we will move on with the lesson. I will introduce this week’s poetry style by telling students that authors can write poems about a variety of topics, but that this week we are focusing on poems about different science topics. I will introduce the book Predator and Prey by asking students what they remember about predators and prey. I will remind them that predators are animals that are looking for food and to eat other animals. Prey are the animals that are trying not to be eaten. These poems are special because they are two poems side by side, predators and prey talking to each other. The first poems that we will read is “Ant Armies” and “The Scent of Danger.” Since we have been visualizing for two weeks now, I will allow students to lead the discussion of visualizing. I will pick a student to model visualization for the class, reminding them that since these poems are about predators and prey, they will be visualizing about two different animals. After we have practiced visualizing, I will read the author’s note at the bottom of the page talking about the animals to see how close our visualization was.
Next, we will read “Patience of a Snake” and “Hot-Tempered Squirrel.” I will read the poems aloud twice and give students’ time to individually visualize. Students will then turn and talk with their partner to visualize what they think is happening in the story. I will select a few students to share with the class. We will end by reading the author’s note.
Finally, I will read “Shadow Striker” and “Push-up Power” along with the author’s note about the animals. This time, students will return to their desks to illustrate their visualizations. This work will be independent. After students have had an opportunity to visualize and illustrate, I will select a few illustrations to have the students share with the class.
We will continue this exercise throughout the week with the poems “Listen for Me,” “Diving Beetle’s Food-Sharing Rules,” “In the Depths of the Summer Pond,” “Aquatic Fashion,” and “Into the Mud” from Song of the Water Boatman. We will also read the space poems “Skywatch,” “The Earth,” “The Moon,” and “The Black Hole” from Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars: Space Poems and Paintings. We will read three of these poems a day for the remainder of the week.
Week 4: Poetry from Black Authors
Texts: Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, Seeing Into Tomorrow, That is My Dream, Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat
Additional Texts for Extension: The Undefeated, No Mirrors In My Nana’s House, A Place Inside of Me / A Poem to Heal the Heart, Soul Looks Back in Wonder, My People, Pass It On: African-American Poetry for Children, The Block, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, The Sweet and Sour Animal Book
Materials: Book with poem, Pre-printed poetry booklet, crayons or colored pencils
Sample Lesson
We will begin our last poetry study with Life Doesn’t Frighten Me by Maya Angelou and illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquiat. I will tell students that the poems we read this week are written by Black poets. Many of these are poems that adults read and enjoy. Before we read the book/poem, I will read segments of the notes in the back about Maya Angelou and Jean-Michel Basquiat. We will discuss why these people are important. I will tell students that they did not write and illustrate this book together but that an editor took the poem and used Basquiat’s artwork for the illustrations.
I will read the whole book aloud, showing the pictures to students as we go. Next, I will go back to the first stanza, and reread it. Since this poem is more complex than some of the ones that we have been reading, I will model visualizing only the first stanza. I will say something like, “For the first stanza, I picture a little kid who is trying to go to bed, but he’s having trouble falling asleep. He sees the shadows from his toys and furniture on the wall. He can hear his parents and the dog in the hallway. He is a little scared and having trouble sleeping, but he’s trying to be brave. He is trying not to be afraid.” I will ask students if they have ever felt a similar way and remind them that we will go through each stanza, reading two at a time. I will have students turn and talk with each other. Then, I will call on students to share their visualizations with the class. I will encourage students to think about how they will illustrate their poems. Will they model their illustrations to look like Basquiat’s or something else?
After we have read the whole poem, students will return to their desks with their poetry booklets. I will remind them to pick one of their visualizations to illustrate. They do not have to draw everything that they visualized, but I will encourage them to pick the visualization that they like best. They can choose to illustrate in the style of Basquiat or in their own style. After they are finished illustrating, I will pick a few illustrations for students to share with the class.
We will continue the week by reading the following haikus from Seeing Into Tomorrow—"Is this the dirt road,” “The clouds are smiling,” and “Suddenly mindful.” I will also read the author’s note about Richard Wright and his haikus. The author’s note also explains why the illustrator chose to use photographs. For another lesson, we will read poems from Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat. We will focus on “Books” by Eloise Greenfield, “The Girls in the Circle” by Nikki Giovanni, and “Audition” by Hope Anita Smith. On the last day of the week, we will read That Is My Dream, which is a picture book adaptation of “Dream Variation” by Langston Hughes. For each poem, we will discuss who the poet and illustrators were and why they are important.