Pamela M. Fowler
A.
READING OF SELECTED POEMS
Pass out photocopies of the selected poems for the class to read along.
Go around the classroom and have each student read aline outloud of one poem. Then have the children alternate reading. Finally chose one student to read alone.
Ask the class which way they liked better, or did they like all three readings? Ask if they got a different feeling from each reading. Discuss.
1. Basketball—Nikki Giovanni
2. Africa—Langston Hughes
3. Cat—Mary Britton Miller
Mini-Lesson: Review Line—Stanza
Have each child identify the lines and stanzas of each poem.
Intonation
Using a poem with dialogue (What’s in the Sack?) Have the children read with different tones; anger, gaiety, silliness, a rap beat, etc. Then read it with no expression at all and ask the class what tone fits the poem the best and why. Discuss their answers and why it works and why the others do not work so well.
B.
WRITING
Koch—Lies pages 192-197 Teacher read page 198.
DAY’S FORMULA AND ASSIGNMENTS
: ‘Once’ Five lines minimum; rhyming is the author’s option. Keep in mind intonation: it will be used during share time.
C.
QUIET UNINTERRUPTED WRITING TIME
D. SHARE TIME
During this share time the authors are to stand in front of the class and read their poem with the tone of voice they deem appropriate. Praise the class for good listening and also praise the author for a mature reading.
Pointing: Same as in Lessons I and II. This time as a factor. The audience not only has to tell the author what they liked in the poem, but also why they liked that particular part. This session a lot of responses may be due to the way the poem was read.
If this persist as the share time goes on, try to refocus the class back to what the author has written. If you see that this is a problem have the author reread the poem in a regular tone of voice, get some comments from the class and then allow the author to read the poem again in their chosen tone of voice.
C.
QUIET UNINTERRUPTED WRITING TIME
D.
SHARE TIME
Pointing: Same as Lesson III
