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Transcript

How To Eat a Poem

by Eve Merriam

Don't be polite.

Bite in.

Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that

may run down your chin.

It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.

You do not need a knife or fork or spoon

or plate or napkin or tablecloth.

For there is no core

or stem

or rind

or pit

or seed

or skin

to throw away.

While reading and crafting poetry, the children will be asked to zoom in on something amazing, memorable, beautiful, or interesting, and then find and develop images through surprising or strong words to communicate that image.

Song writing uses the same tool box as poetry writing. By reading song lyrics, listening to songs, and watching lyric interpretations through music videos, we can do the following:

• Engage the children who are auditory learners.

• Teach children to differentiate between literal and non-literal meaning of increasingly difficult texts.

• Offer many examples of similes, metaphors, and personification.

• Allow students to practice discussion skills, which include supporting opinions with examples.

• Teach the reading comprehension strategy of making connections between the text and the world, the self, another text, or even other songs.

Here is one example of how we would do this:

First we look at the lyrics to a song that contains some poetry craft. Each of us will get a copy of the lyrics, and we'll treat it like a poem.

Break Away by Kelly Clarkson

Grew up in a small town

And when the rain would fall down

I'd just stare out my window

Dreamin' of what could be

And if I'd end up happy

I would pray

Trying hard to reach out

But when I tried to speak out

Felt like no one could hear me

Wanted to belong here

But something felt so wrong here

So I prayed I could breakaway

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly

I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky

And I'll make a wish, take a chance, make a change

And breakaway

Out of the darkness and into the sun

But I won't forget all the ones that I love

I'll take a risk, take a chance, make a change

And breakaway

We'll talk about the meaning in general, and the meaning of individual lines. We'll also talk about alternate ways to say the same thing.

Then we'll listen to the music while the children reread the lyrics. After we'll have another discussion, where we try to make connections with the lyrics.

Collaboration is an important piece to interpreting and performing; we feed off of each other's ideas and energy. We'll use each other to deepen our understandings of the poems we perform.

The music side of this toolbox will steer away from poetry form- the point of this unit isn’t to memorize types of meter and try to fit words and syllables within the meter. Instead there will be an emphasis on discovering the rhythm in our free verse poetry, using the most powerful or even surprising words and line breaks.

For example, the rhythm of this:

CRICKETS by Valerie Worth

Crickets talk in the tall grass all later summer long. When summer is gone, the dry grass whispers alone.

Is much different than the actual version:

CRICKETS

Valerie Worth

Crickets

Talk

In the tall

Grass

All

Late summer

Long.

When

Summer

Is gone,

The dry

Grass

Whispers

Alone.

We can use poetry to look at different perpectives using two (or more) different voices in the same poem:

And of course we can also use poetry to examine different ways of viewing a single idea or object.

That's it for now. Thanks for

watching yet another unit

presentation.

Sincerely,

Ryan

"Peelay-ing" Poetry

We'll perform a lot of poetry this year too. There are several reasons for this:

  • To demonstrate that poetry is often at its best when it is performed and spoken out loud.

  • To dig into the meaning of a poem, line by line.
  • To practice collaborating, memorizing and performing by interpretation
  • To discover multiple ways to interpret a poem through rhythm, props, actions, and choral voices.

5) How can we use poetry to express the multiple ways we view the world?

The focus of this question is on the meaning and the music of poetry.* By music, I'm talking about the poetry's rhythm. The idea is that there is a figurative poetry toolbox split into meaning and music, and that each item in the toolbox (image, metaphor, alliteration, line-breaks, titles, Onomatopoeia, personification, etc.,) are tools that help the students interpret and craft poetry.

*The division of meaning and music comes from Georgia Heard in her book "Awakening the Heart".

4) How does the music of poetry compliment the meaning?

Favorite

Poem

Project

http://www.favoritepoem.org/

3) How can I collaborate to interpret a poem?

We'll be reading some of the poems featured, making predictions on why these poems would be valued, watch the documentaries, and reflect on the personal connections.

We'll also be reading poems and making our own personal connections. We'll create our own "Favorite Poem Project" documentaries.

The Favorite Poem Project was created by a poet laureate with the purpose of showcasing people from all walks of life and their own personal connections with a poem.

Later in the year, grade 4 (and possibly grade 5) will hold a Poetry Jam night. We'll bust out the bongos and the sunglasses, and perform poems in a variety of ways for you, live!

The project has put together 50 short documentaries featuring people of all ages and backgrounds reading and speaking personally about poems they love. The power of the videos comes from the very diverse group of people they feature. Everyone, no matter what background or age, can make meaningful and profound connections with poetry. The videos are a permanent part of the Library of Congress archive of recorded poetry and literature.

2) What is the relationship between songs and poetry?

Pilleting Poetry

1) What does it mean to make a personal connection with a poem?

Our year-long poetry unit will be

answering five essential questions:

I lived in Guinea for two years in a small village. The women of the village described the action of crushing herbs with a mortar and pistol as "pee-lay." There was poetry in that daily action, and thus that word has a special beauty for me. I like using this word because when you "pee-lay" something, you break it down into something finer, bringing out the flavor, for the purpose of eating it. That's what we will do with poems this year; we'll learn how to eat them.

And now a closer look at each

of these questions:

KITTY CAT

A

I’m a kitten

I’m soft

I play

People pet me

I look out the window

For birds

My eyes are green

Mine glow

B

I’m a cat

I’m soft

I rest

That was before that

Brat showed up

Been there done that

My eyes are green

Me too

Our 4th grade poetry unit

If the music video has something to add to the meaning of the music, we'll watch it as well. In this case, even though there is a serious plug for "Princess Diaries 2," there are several scenes, especially in the beginning, that put concrete examples to the metaphor of wanting to spread your wings until you touch the sky.

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