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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.
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:
*The division of meaning and music comes from Georgia Heard in her book "Awakening the Heart".
Favorite
Poem
Project
http://www.favoritepoem.org/
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.
And now a closer look at each
of these questions:
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.