“Prose: words in their order; Poetry: the best words in the best order.”

By Coleridge

 Poetry. It can be either a death knell, or a song, depending on how kids are introduced to it. Hopefully, the latter is what your children are experiencing this year. Poems are a wonderful way in which children can be released from the limiting factors of prose. Thus far this year, the children have been written a variety of poetic types: a prose poem, haiku, ode, diamante, an adverb and adjective poem, and a biography poem. There will be many more to come. To help you, as parents, understand how the children are being taught, I have written an lesson summary for some of the poetic forms.  

 Ode to One’s Parents.

A Horation Ode

 An ode is any type of enthusiastic and exalted lyrical verse, directed to a fixed purpose and dealing progressively with one dignified theme-Edmund Gosse. Originally of ancient Greek origin, an ode was a lyric song that was performed to address a person or thing not present but in an intense and exalted way. The poems were highly structured in form. A later adaptation is the Horation ode that contains a one-stanza pattern that is repeated throughout the poem and is often fairly personal and reflective. This is the form that is being used here. (Paraphrased from the Handbook of Poetic Forms. Padgett, Ron. Teachers and Writers Collective.)

Using A Circle of Seasons by Myra Cohn Livingston, in a small group setting, I read three of the seasonal poems asking the kids to take note of the end rhymes and writing down the forms on a board. 

• Pattern: A A B A with a coda of CC.

 We re-read. But, this time, we listened for the difference in the content of the poems. The main body of the poem was made up of details for that particular subject with a lot of descriptive words. The coda was a summary/wrap up statement with the ode form of direct address.

• seed and root (the subject of the poems)
• Send forth a tiny shoot! (a exclamatory statement)

Then, the kids needed to come up with a sentence that summarized what was unique about their parents. Student examples are below-

• My parents are caring and considerate.
• My parents teach me how to learn.
• My parents do their job perfectly, whatever it is.

This sentence will be the basis for how the poem is written. The first stanza of the poem will be about their mother, the second stanza about their dad and the final coda will be the sentence modified to follow the ode form.

Coming up with nifty words can be difficult. The students were paired up. They then came up with a = list of ten adjectives or adverbs that they would use to describe their parents. After they came up with the list, then they had to make sure that the word was correctly spelled using the dictionary and then come up with a list of synonyms using the Roget’s Student Thesaurus.

Ode to Okasan and Otosan

Mom, you taught me to be courageous and great

It was difficult to get my mind straight

When I am with you I can do it forever

I will help you, you are my soulmate.

Dad, you work hard for the family and bring us gifts.

You come back late but I hear you open the door after the evening shift.

I always feel happy when we go out and talk together

You are so strong you give me a big lift!

O, Okasan and Otosan

Thank you for teaching me to be brave and supportive!

by Birke 

Adjective and Adverb Poem

 It is often said that desperation is the mother of invention. Definitely true when one is teacher. When, Mr. Harrits and I started teaching this unit, one of our major thrusts was to have children really explore the function of adverbs and adjectives. Up to this point in time, students have intuitively felt which words seemed to go well together, which is a needed discovery phase. However, to become more skilled with building descriptive language, analyzing the function of various words is important. In this particular poem, we used the books Up,Up and Away and Many Luscious Lollipops by Ruth Heller to help the student learn the function of both adjectives and adverbs.

Following that, the students then brainstormed a key word that they would like to write about. Using a list form, they then came up with synonyms, antonyms, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs for the main word. We expanded this list by using book and on-line sites of thesauri. Finally, to give the poem poetic rhythm, we used a syllable pattern of 1-2-3 for each of the word parts capped by a closing statement. The final poems worked out quite well…interestingly enough!

Bed

calm       

pleasant

delightful

sleep

slumber

hibernate

still

peacefully

undisturbed

not

daydream

speculate

…helpful whenever you need a rest! 

by Brandon

Diamante Poems for the Japanese Year of the Sheep

 This poem format builds on the students understanding both of word function, contextual meanings, plus the development of a shape poem. In this particular rendition of the poem, the children studied the attributes of people born in the Year of the Sheep and used their background experience about sheep in general. The poetic dynamics of the poem was a result of the comparisons between the two types of sheep. Instructionally, this poem is best taught from the outside in, starting with lines 1 and 7, then 2 and 6, and so on. This allows the capper comparison, line 4, to be particularly strong and also have the poem flow well as a whole.

Line 1 = One word topic-  sheep as an animal (noun)
Line 2 = Two describing words (adjective)
Line 3 = Three action words (ing verbs)
Line 4 = Four words: Two words about the animal and two words about the human
Line 5 = Three action words for the ending noun (ing verbs)
Line 6 = Two words to describe ending noun
Line 7 = One word ending noun for sheep as humans.

Sheep Poem

Aries

domesticated   gentle

wool gathering   all playing   cud chewing

shy  cotton ball                               talkative  suit

one puzzling   good living   all hogging

artistic   shy

Ram

by Monica

Page constructed and maintained by Bridgette Fincher.

Tuesday, June 24, 2003