An Early Lesson Building on Prior Knowledge - Good Night, Sleep Tight Responses
This lesson is intended for use at the beginning of the classroom sessions I will have with the students, perhaps even on the first day. Its intent is to evoke in the students remembrances of sayings or blessings they heard when younger (including nursery rhymes as needed), analyze those expressions, and use them as the basis for a response poem.
Objectives:
The students will be able to
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1. recognize the "poetic nature" of aphorisms, or sayings, and blessings.
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2. suggest, in their own words, possible meanings behind such expressions.
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3. offer possibilities for implied speaker and listener, as well as characters.
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4. write a response to a saying of their choice.
Materials:
Copies of "Good Night, Sleep Tight" and "Bedbugs Marching Song" (Jones 112).
A list of similar blessings and bedtime rhymes, in case the students come up blank.
A chalkboard, whiteboard, or chart paper with appropriate writing utensils.
Paper and writing utensils for the students.
Procedures:
Orient the students to the topic by asking them who put them to bed at night when they were little. Explain what happened when you were a child, bringing up the idea of a blessing or saying that became a ritual for you and your special grownup (mother, grandparent, etc.). Mine is to talk about my mother and recite the rhyme "Good night, sleep tight; don't let the bedbugs bite." I write the rhyme on the board and have the students copy it into their notebooks. Ask the students what purpose this rhyme served - did my bed really have bugs? Discuss whether this kind of expression is a poem, or at least poetic. Suggest rhyme, repetition, ritual purpose as poetic elements, if necessary. Once they have the idea of a poetic blessing or "take care" expression in mind, give them two minutes to write down similar expressions they have heard. At the end of the two-minute period, ask the students to volunteer some of their writings aloud. Post these on the board as well. Add some blessings or rhymes from your own list if the students have not come up with very many. Discuss the concepts of speaker, audience (or listener), and character. Repeat the "Good Night" rhyme you started with and ask the students who the implied speaker and listener are in that piece. Ask who the characters are, if there are any, in the piece. Do not resolve this question in any final way. Discuss possible speakers, listeners and characters in the other expressions written on the board. Then, read aloud "Bedbugs Marching Song," characterizing it as a response poem. Finally, have the students choose one of the blessings from the board (other than "Good Night") and write a response to it. You may want to suggest that they put themselves in the shoes of either the implied listener or one of the characters and think of themselves as "answering back."
Extension Activities
Make a bulletin board of the original rhymes and the students' responses. Ask the students to write a response to a nursery rhyme of their or your choice, such as "Jack and Jill." Have the students interview older folks in the community, such as their grandparents, to assemble a collection of bedtime rhymes or other, similar blessings.
A mid-Semester Lesson on Writing after Great Poetry -- "The Tyger"
This lesson is intended as an introduction to William Blake for novice poetry students. The poet's work is used to illustrate metaphor, poetic purpose, and as inspiration for the students' own creative efforts.
Objectives:
The students will be able to
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1. actively listen to William Blake's "The Tyger."
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2. suggest possible meanings for the poem's metaphors
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3. read two other short Blake poems on their own
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4. write a poem asking questions of an animal or plant
Materials:
Copies of Blake's "The Tyger," "The Lamb," and "The Sick Rose."
Paper and writing utensils for the students.
Procedures:
As Kenneth Koch suggests in
Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?
, read "The Tyger" poem aloud to the students, pass out copies, and have them help you work out the metaphors. See if you can elicit a description of the poem as one of questioning why the animal is assembled as it is. Hand out "The Lamb" and "The Sick Rose." Give the students five minutes to read these poems, looking for similarities and differences to "The Tyger." Circulate while the children read, giving assistance when asked. Discuss their ideas aloud afterwards. Finally, have them write a conversation poem in which they speak to an animal or plant of their choice, focusing on asking it questions. Tell them that they may have the animal or plant respond in the poem, if they want. Circulate while the students write, offering assistance and encouragement where necessary. Collect the students' poems at the end of the period.
Extension Activities:
Write a second poem, using a plant if the first was to an animal and vice versa. Have the students illustrate their poems. Exchange poems and write responses (in poetry or prose) to others' pieces.
The Culminating Poetry Project -- Our Favorite Poems Anthology
This lesson is intended for use after the students have read a written a large number of poems, including some of those in
Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology
. I will use the lesson to help the students express themselves more coherently and with a more literary style in the blurbs they will be writing for our own class anthology.
Objectives:
Students will be able to justify, in writing, why they like a particular poem.
Materials:
Copies of Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz's Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite
Poem Project Anthology.
A chalkboard, whiteboard, or chart paper with appropriate writing utensils.
Paper and writing utensils for the students.
Procedures:
Give the students five minutes to thumb through Pinsky, focusing on reading the introductory blurbs submitted to the editors rather than on the poems themselves. Ask them to look for what they consider to be well- and poorly-written explanations of why the poem was the person's favorite. At the end of the five minutes, have them offer suggestions for "good" and "bad" blurbs. Ask what they think should be included in this type of explanation. Emphasize that specific reasons (such as "The images in this poem made me think about birds in a different way.") are more understandable and helpful to the reader than vague generalizations ("It's a good poem," for example). Ask whether a simple "I like it" is enough. Have them improve "I like this poem" by asking them to complete the statement "I like this poem because it makes me feel _____." Write suggestions from the Pinsky submissions on the board, emphasizing those that refer to the poetic elements of the selections, such as metaphor, image, rhyme, rhythm, etc. Have the students take out one of the poems they have particularly liked during the course of the semester and ask them to write five statements explaining, as specifically as possible, exactly why they liked it. Suggest that they write about how the poem made them feel, how it applied to or reflected their experiences, how the piece worked as a poem, or how it inspired them as poets. Have them share their explanations in pairs, commenting on the specifics contained in each other's work. Ask the students to turn in the one statement they feel is the best, along with the title of the poem it describes.
Extension Activities:
Have the students do the five statements activity for a poem they dislike, again emphasizing specificity. Make a bulletin board matching game out of copies of the poems and yarn thumb tacked to cards with the student descriptions written out. Have the students write specific, admiring statements about their own (or classmates') poems.
