Transcript Subtle Swirl Template - Massachusetts Reading Association

Teaching Poetry with the
Common Core
By Lee Batjiaka and Grace Nagle
Objectives
• To present strategies that can enhance the
teaching of poetry with the Common Core
• To share methods of teaching poetry that
worked well for us (and that we hope you
add to your teaching tool box).
• Discuss additional ways to incorporate
poetry into your classroom.
“Every child every day should hear an adult read
something aloud, equal amounts of fiction and
nonfiction and at least one poem a day.”
(@Stephharvey49).
Poetry Increases Students’ Knowledge of
Words & Language
• Poets use words to create images.
• They choose just the right words to create a sensory
experience for the readers.
• They use both figurative language and literal language.
• Students can learn new words and nuances for the
words through poetry.
Poetry Increases Students’ Ability to
Engage in Authentic Discussions
Students will:
• engage in discussions that dig deep into the text
• make connections to real–world events
What standards can you meet with
poetry?
The ELA anchor standards for reading call upon students to be able to:
• Make inferences (1).
• Cite specific textual evidence to support conclusions and
answers (1).
• Determine and analyze the theme of a text (2).
• Analyze the way ideas develop over the course of a text (3).
• Interpret words and phrases (4).
• Analyze connotative and figurative meanings of words (4).
• Analyze how word choice shapes a text (4).
• Analyze the structure of a text (5).
• Assess how point of view shapes a text (6).
• Analyze how two texts address the same theme (9).
There are also anchor standards
in Language, Speaking and Listening, and
even Writing that also lend themselves to the
use of poetry.
Poetry is part of the common core. Poetry,
poetic language, and poetry terminology (e.g.,
stanza, sonnet) are specifically mentioned in all
grades.
Let’s talk strategies!
Poetry Workshops
Immerse Students in the Genre
• Before students can begin creating poetry, they
must have a clear vision of what poetry looks
like.
• In a poetry workshop, we spend time reading
and getting to know the texts we’ll study. We
make notes of things we notice about how
these texts are written
Introduction to Poetry ~ Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the
shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Poetry Stations
• Students are surrounded by poetry.
• Differentiation at every level: interest, choice,
ability, multiple intelligences.
• Creates a knowledge base for your students to
draw from and to refer to.
• A sense of inquiry, curiosity and noticing
pervades the room.
• Last two-three days.
Poetry Stations
• Create stations based on what you
would like your students to know about
poetry.
• For me, it was important that students:
Find poems they loved reading,
Develop a connection with poetry by
responding creatively to it
• Poetry is about creating new and
surprising images.
Poetry Stations – Add
Meaningful Tasks
• Teach students to annotate a poem
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Instruct students to identify the following elements
and make notations: rhyme scheme, figurative
language, images, symbols, sound devices
(alliteration,assonance, rhythm, onomatopeia).
Instruct students to circle any part of the poem that
stands out, confuses them, or is important.
Write questions in the margin; highlight unusual
words; mark phrases that indicate the poem’s
meaning.
Determine the poem’s theme and draw arrows to the
lines that support the theme.
Poetry Stations
• Poetry is meant to be shared.
• At the end of each class, we share what
we have done during the day at the
stations.
• Students share their favorite poems and
discuss the meanings behind them. They
read poems aloud and even act some out.
Share:
• Whole group share: sit in circle and read
favorite line or stanza
• Partner share
• Small group share
• Strategy highlight share
• Then, teacher would close the lesson.
Group Verbal Fluency
Summarizer
• Students are placed in groups of four.
• Students then go around the circle, speaking
one by one for 30 seconds about an assigned
poem.
• It can be about the comprehension of the poem,
figurative language, favorite quotations, or a
reflection.
Write Around
• After reading a poem, students write for two minutes on
whether they liked it or not and why. They then exchange
papers with their partner. The new student will read and
respond to what their partner wrote on the same paper.
They exchange again and respond to the newest
response from their partner. Repeat the exchange again.
• This is a real silent conversation between the two
students; a non-verbal conversation.
• When I use this as a response to a story or poem, it
seems that the students really dig deeper into the text.
Sometimes the students will even respond more.
Poetry Workshops: Continue
the Conversation
Keep in mind the Common Core standards focus
on supporting answers by citing "specific textual
evidence." When students are sharing their
interpretations, follow up with, "What in the poem
makes you think that?" This will not only help
students practice the important skill of grounding
their conclusions in the text, but it will also lead to
more dynamic classroom discussions.
Poetry Workshops: Step Two
“Writing Under the Influence”
• Now kids have a vision of what nonrhyming, contemporary (and modern)
poetry looks like.
• Yet students are not ready to go off
and write poems on their own.
• We must find poems that can act as
model/mentor texts to help guide
them through the writing process.
Poetry Workshop: Step Two
“Writing Under the Influence”
• Kids need to “apprentice” themselves to good
poetry and imitate the model.
• Need to borrow frameworks in which to express
themselves—provides scaffolding
• “Continual exposure to structure used often by
professionals will produce attention to,
understanding of, and with practice, normal use
of such structures.” ~Don Killgallon
How do we go about picking mentor
poems?
• Read, read, read! Find some poems you
love.
• Try to identify the rhetorical structure in the
poem and if any other poems also use that
structure.
• Name the type of poem yourself.
Suggested Poems
6th, 7th & 8th Grades
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"Chicago" by Carl Sandburg
"I like to see it lap the Miles" by Emily Dickinson
"Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll
"Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
"Oranges" by Gary Soto
"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
"The Song of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats
"Twelfth Song of Thunder" by Anonymous [Navajo Tradition]
Structure of Poetry Mini-lesson
• Do Now/Anticipatory Set
• Introduce model poem
• Reading the poem like a reader
• Students read poem like writers-noticing chart
• Active Engagement (A “Try-it”)
• Independent Workshop Time
• Share
• Closing
Let’s Try It: An Apology Poem
Apology poems have a theme children find
irresistible…apologizing for something they’re really
secretly glad they did. They enjoyed asserting the
importance of their secret pleasure against the world
of adult regulations. They apologized, and were
pleased about, breaking things, taking things,
forgetting and neglecting things, eating things, hitting
people, and looking at things.
Do Now:
• Have you ever had to apologize for
something you were not truly sorry for?
• Turn and talk to your neighbor
Reading Like a Reader
“This is Just to Say”
William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Active Engagement:
• Class would try one out together on board,
in groups, pairs or individually on common
topic/idea
• Example: Sorry for being late, sorry for not
doing our homework, etc.
Independent Workshop Time:
• Please try your own apology poem as I
come around to conference with you.
• Now it’s time to share.
Student’s Example
Escape
Forgive me
For splashing mud
On my new gleaming white Adidas’
With coral ocean blue stripes
And footpads, soft and rubbery.
I was rushing away,
In a hurry to escape from school
And the all out sprint never felt better.
Poetic Structure:
Lines and Stanzas
• Take a poem and put it into prose form
• See how many different ways we can
break poem into lines and stanzas
• Remember – not all ideas need to start
and end on the same line.
• Take a gallery walk
Revising: Lines ~Let’s Try It!
Lemon Tree ~Jennifer Clement
If you climb a lemon tree feel the bark under
your knees and feet, smell the white flowers,
rub the leave in your hands. Remember, the
tree is older than you are and you might find
stories in its branches.
Revising: Lines
Lemon Tree ~Jennifer Clement
If you climb a lemon tree
feel the bark
under your knees and feet,
smell the white flowers,
rub the leave in your hands.
Remember,
the tree is older than you are
and you might find stories
in its branches.
Find a poem that you can demonstrate a
multiple of strategies.
We have chosen:
“Abandoned Farmhouse”
Abandoned Farmhouse
BY TED KOOSER
He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room;
and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.
A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth,
and they had a child, says the sandbox made
from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window
frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.
Something went wrong, says the empty
house
in the weed-choked yard.
Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer;
the still-sealed jars in the cellar say she left
in a nervous haste.
And the child?
Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm—a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls.
Something went wrong, they say.
Diction (Word Choice)
What is the feeling of this poem? What
words make it feel that way?
Circle all the negative words in the poem.
Did you find - broken, fearing, broken, leaky,
scarce, lonely, wrong, choked, nervous,
strewn, rusty, broken, wrong?
Now let’s look at the
subject – verb agreement
• Notice that it is the items in the poem that “speak.”
They tell the story.
• The poem says: “He was a big man, says the size of
his shoes…”
• Normally, we would say: “The size of his shoes says
he was a big man…”
(Remember it is the “size” speaking, so it is singular, although “shoes” is plural.
The size says, “he was a big man”, but if the shoes were “speaking”, the shoes say,
“he was a big man.”)
• Underline all places where an item “says” something.
Ex. - He was a big man, says the size of his shoes…”
Prepositional Phrases
• What is a preposition?
(Hint…something a squirrel can do to a tree)
• A preposition shows the relationship
between two items. It gives context for the
objects and adds detail.
– The squirrel was by the tree.
– The squirrel was on the tree.
– The squirrel went around the tree.
• Highlight the prepositional phrases.
Think – Pair – Share
• Notice that the first two stanzas go in the
following order:
1. what is said
2. the item that says it
3. Where the item is located
• Why would Kooser invert the natural order of
the sentence? Where is the emphasis in each
description?
Now try imitating the author
• The items in this poem “say” things about the people?
• Have students find one item from your classroom they
think says something about you.
• Have students imitate the author’s style and create a
sentence explaining what the item says about you.
• Share.
She is passionate about the environment, says the recycle box
sitting anxiously beside the trashcan.
Brainstorm/Graphic Organizer/Pre-writing
• Think of a space or an event. Choose something that
is comfortable and you know well.
(Example: Home, room, car, practice field, breakup,
move, funeral, holiday, competition, meal etc.)
• Create three columns – Says, Item, Location – on your
paper.
• List items in the middle column. Be creative.
• What do the objects say about you or the event?
– Remember, what the object says comes first.
– Example: She was an active woman, say the running
shoes discarded on the cluttered floor…
• Where are the items in the space? (prepositional
phrases)
Resources
Making Room for Poetry in the Common Core Era
• http://www.middleweb.com/11694/making-room-poetry-common-core-era/
The Teacher Toolkit
• http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/save-the-last-word-for-me
Appendix B.indd - Common Core State Standards
• http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf