Poetry Across The Curriculum:

An Introduction (K-8)Workshop Description And Supplies In Notes

Created By Thomas J. PalumboFor The Catapult Learning Series

Poetry Across The Curriculum:

An Introduction (K-8)

Created By Thomas J. PalumboFor The Catapult Learning Series

Workshop Objective 1

To demonstrate a wide variety of enriching, immediately ready to use skill sets, lessons, and activities and help participants to adapt these creative ideas into their poetry and creative writing programs

Workshop Objective 2

To introduce the couplet, tercet, and quatrain in time tested and contemporary formats that integrate poetry with the vocabulary, spelling, phonics, mathematics, history, and the critical thinking curriculum

Workshop Objective 3

To assist teachers in tiering today’s lessons to meet the needs of the multi-level, regular or special education classroom with a focus on improving remedial, basic, and advanced skills

Workshop Objective 4

To create a workshop climate that encourages peer sharing and uses the experiences of each participant to further develop the concepts necessary to teach poetry and creative writing to all students

Workshop Objective 5

To introduce our on-line resource catapultpoetry.wikispaces.com and the additional PowerPoint, lesson, and web site archives that will be available to each participant on this site at the conclusion of today’s workshop

Workshop Warm-ups

These three starting activities at three different levels and one activity at three levels were designed to activate your critical thinking, creative writing, and integrating poetry across all levels’ skills.

Number Couplets (Primary)

When I see a one, I draw the sun and wiggle, wiggle.

When I see a two, I draw a shoe and wiggle, wiggle

When I see a three, I draw a tree and wiggle, wiggle

I Am, I Am Not Poetry (Intermediate)

This is the perfect starting form for any poetry class be it second grade or senior high gifted. It is also a mini-interest survey for each student in your class after they illustrate the six lines you request for display. This poem is called Thomas:

I am cheese pizza, I am not a spice..ee taco. I am theater and plays, I am not television. I am the city’s fast beat, I am not a quiet wood. I am rock and roll, I am not classical or rap. I am frolicking dogs, I am not a friendly cat.

I am any crystal beach, I am not picky, am I?

Biographical Poetry (Intermediate)

The Beach Is: Crashing waves Hot sand Families playing Collecting seashells Avoiding jellyfish Building sand castles Standing in the water, Reading my favorite book, This is my type of heaven.

Word Common Denominators (Advanced)

How many times have we found simple words in our poems that are far removed from their actual meanings. “Miles to go before I sleep’ doesn’t refer to bedtime.” “Look at my works yea mighty and despair” is not talking about strong people. A ‘common denominator’ describes the point where two ideas/meanings meet.

What is common between an Indian and a turkey is feathers; decorated war pilot and cards is ace; Democrats and a luau is a party; submerge and a kitchen is sink. Mastering these common denominator ideas will let you look a little more analytically at a poet’s words and their meaning.

Skills Level One

A. B.

Funny Pig

Fat Billy

Big Bunny

Old Cat

Silly Cold

Tiering Skills Level Two

A. B.

Heavy _____

Dark _____

Red _____

Bright _____

Lone _____

Tiering Skills Level Three

A. B.

1. On and on lyrics _____

2. Happy father _____

3. Benjamin’s writing tools _____

4. A not on time boyfriend _____

5. Seafood platter _____

Brainstorming Some Beginning Thoughts

Some starting ideas and lead-ins to creative writing, poetry, and critical thinking for today’s participants to discuss. Getting kids ready for topics like today’s is called “Think-a-cising” or “Brain-a-cising” in our classroom.

Before Formal Instruction

1. What activities do we use in the classroom to get children ready for poetry instruction?

2. How much poetry do you use in your literature circles or in your ‘response to literature’ activities?

3. Poetry books are what percentage of your in-classroom library? How can we add to our classroom library?

4. Do you have any favorite poetry websites?

5. Would sending a mini-bag full of books home with each student at the beginning of each month be feasible for your program?

Concrete Poetry

Concrete poetry is often called picture poetry because words, thoughts, and sentences are put together to form an artistic work or diagram.

If you are talking about your house, the words you use will be shaped in the form of a house. Lewis Carroll of “Alice In Wonderland” fame invented concrete poetry by writing a poem about a mouse in the form of a mouse’s body and its tail. Trace a young child’s hand and just write their name around the tracing again and again for a unique first concrete poetry experience or for a gift for the grandparents.

Kicking Off With The Couplet

A section of multi-level drills, tasks, short and long term projects, and creative writing activities using the couplet. This section represents a wealth of easy to use formats for students to creatively share their ideas.

The Thinking Box

Before formal instruction begins in creative writing or poetry the concept of the thinking box should be introduced.

The thinking box should hold three of the directions your writing or poetry might take.

The Couplet

A couplet is a poem that contains a rhyme pair. It is two lines of poetry in form A, A or A, B expressed in regular or irregular meter. Try exploring the internal rhyme below.

I like to grow, Unique flowers all in a row.

The Spain I know, Starts with a guitar refrain.

Internal Rhyme/Assonance

The Spain I know…Starts with a guitar refrain is a form of internal rhyme. Assonance is another form of internal rhyme. One form of assonance is where the same vowel sound is repeated in two or more words in a poetry line.

The Spain I know, Starts with a guitar refrain.

Joe grows roses in the Spring For all to touch and see.

The tree teetered in the wind.

They were wed Wednesday at noon.

The Opposite Couplet

An opposite couplet is a poem that uses a pair of words that are opposite in meaning to generate the start of a two line rhyme.

Sweet and sour, I eat them by the hour.

Up and down, The coaster’s the best in town.

Left and right, What turn will I make for home tonight?

The Advertising Couplet

The ‘school to career’ theme can be easily developed by taking an easy poetry concept like the couplet into the advertising world.

NIKE is the one, To make all sports fun.

X-Box gives you the power, To compete each and every hour.

Think Sony widescreen LCD, What everyone needs in a new TV!

The Alphabetical Couplet

An alphabetical couplet is a poem that uses three consecutive letters of the alphabet and a sports, historical, scientific, or musical theme.

A is for Adams, B is for Bush, C is for Coolidge who needed a push.

A is for apple, B is for beet, C is for custard a great dessert treat.

E is for Elway, F is for Flacco, G is for Gehrard who can’t make a tackle.

The Helpful/Healthful Couplet

A helpful or healthful couplet is a poem that uses couplet skills to create a helpful or healthful theme or message.

It is always right, To be polite.

It is really neat, To have clean feet.

The apple is a life saver, Great nutrition with plenty of flavor.

Color Poetry

A large number of poetry books are centered around the theme of color while teaching young children creative writing, vocabulary forms, listening techniques, and rhyming skills. Color Poetry couplets might also include:

The color of my bed/Is bright, bright red.

Please hand me my shoe/It’s the one that’s blue.

The hat I wore to town/Contains two shades of brown.

“Our new dish set/Is sprinkled with flowers”, Violet.

Criss-Cross Poetry

Criss-Cross Poetry is a challenging step into the world of rhyming words and homonyms. It involves criss-crossing a homonyn pair and then placing an illustration depicting both/one word next to the word pair.

Sun B Gnu o Beat e n e w t

The String Couplet

A string couplet is a poem that employs a series of similar words like adjectives or plural nouns in the first line to lead into a key thought in the second line while still using rhyme.

Silly, funny, crying, kicking, all wet, Another night babysitting sister Annette.

Self-portrait, sunflowers, colors aglow, These are the images of a tormented Van Gogh.

Doublets

Doublets are poems that have two words in each line. Normally the lines do not rhyme. The two words describe the subject that appears in the title and relate to the theme of the last words.

Baseball Game

Running, sliding

Hits, errors

Bats, gloves

Fans, stands

Cheering, jeering

Summer fun.

A Touch of the Tercet

A quick look at a rhyme form that is a natural bridge between the couplet and quatrain.

The Tercet

Three lines of poetry in form A, A, A or A, B, A expressed in regular or irregular meter.

The Doctor

When kids get sick,

They often pick,

A medicine they can lick.

The Tercet BiographyThe Tercet Biography allows you to pick favorite

times of your life or of a famous person’s life followed by three descriptive words. The lines may or may not rhyme. Creating a progression of events is the challenge while experimenting with this form.

Allesan

Born on June first,

Kicking, crying, sighing.

Early on had the reading thirst,

Stories, poems, adventures.

Sports gave an early burst,

Baseball, basketball, football.

Triangular Poetry

Triangular Poems start with one word and progress so that each line has one more word. You can use a rhyme form/or not!

School

Learning place

Gain enough knowledge

Literacy you will erase.

Help yourself and a friend

Many people find education without end..

Haiku/Hokku/Tanka

This esteemed Japanese form of poetic expression was originally written to express nature, a season or an event. Its format centers on it syllable count. The haiku contains three lines in (5, 7, 5) syllable form. Tanka adds lines of (7, 7).

The raining clouds cry.

But the thirsty flowers sing,

As Spring now arrives.

Triangular Poetry Word Art

Triangular Words start with one letter and progress so that each line has one more letter added to the line before in any spot.

Planet

Plane

Plan

Pan

Pa

A

Quatrain Ready For It All

The quatrain is the foundation for 75 per cent of all poetry and a large portion of popular song writing often seen in the formation of the refrain.

The Quatrain

Four lines of poetry in a variety of forms with A, B, A, B the format most often used. Mastery of the quatrain is a great jumping off point for more involved poetry forms.

The Rescue

Harriet Tubman is a story that must be told,

She saved 1700 slaves by being bold.

She was master of the woods and of the night.

Philadelphia’s Quakers recorded each flight.

The Clerihew

Clerihew poems (A, A, B, B) by E. Bentley Clerihew are four line poems that use a person’s name to generate a creative and descriptive writing form. Most clerihews start with just that person’s name. If the key name isn’t easily rhymed like Rick Orange it can be placed anywhere in the first line.

Martin Luther King

His message of peace and freedom did ring

Throughout the land and in all places

To every hue and for all the races.

The Clerihew…Continued

Clerihew poems: William Shakespeare

A playwright and a poet…William Shakespeare

In his sonnets a ‘dark lady’ did appear.

Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet might,

Keep scholars and readers pondering all night.

Try clerihews with singers, actors, cartoon characters, Mother Goose participants as well as inventors,

historical figures, famous women, and creatures from mythology and literature.

The BeheadmentThe Beheadment was an activity used by teachers in the 1800’s. It involves writing a four line poem that generates two words whose relation is that the second word is the same as the first except it is missing the first letter that appeared in the first word. Store/tore, Pants/ants, Chop/hop. What two words does the poem below suggest?

I ride on tracks,

From here to St. Lou.

When I come down,

An umbrella will do.

A Week Of Poetry Adventures

Monday I explored the New Jersey shore.

Tuesday’s mountain climbing had me huffing for more.

Wednesday’s safari arrived home real late.

Thursday’s deep sea fishing put nothing on the plate.

Friday we’ll find a cave we can scout.

Saturday’s water skiing is definitely out.

If we don’t swim Sunday, I’ll surely pout.

A Week Of Math Adventures

Monday I aced the math test.

Tuesday I gave body measurement my best.

Wednesday’s money problems were a ball.

Thursday my team found the area of our hall.

Friday we played “What’s My Rule”.

Saturday I pretended teaching division in school.

Sunday, EveryDay Math was easy to study.

I had my dad as my buddy.

One More Thought Poetry

This poetic form involves the use of an additional descriptive word at the end of a quatrain and after the rhyme scheme is finished.

Roses are red,

Violets are blue

With this ring I give.

The promise to always love you_

forever.

Acrostic Poetry

This form of poetic writing uses a vertical column with a theme (such as a person’s name) to create the surrounding structure of the poem. .

A picture, which I hope will

Be one that you will like to

See. If your mamma should

Desire one like it, I could

Easily get her one.

____Lewis Carroll

Internal AcrosticsInternal acrostics can hide a certain school theme like History, Science or Math…

You are really delightful. (yard)

Send us money, Susan. (sums)

Science:

My aunt received stockings. (Mars)

…or be used as a challenging vocabulary drill.

The Prepositional Quatrain

This poetic form is four lines long with the first three or last three lines as prepositional phrases. The first or fourth line is the key point the phrases are building to and highlighting.

The Prey

In the sand,

Under the ocean,

With hungry eyes,

The eel silently waits for dinner.

Shakespeare Sonnet Facts

He wrote 154 sonnets.

The first 126 were written to a young man.

The remaining sonnets were written to a mysterious “Dark Lady”.

The sonnets seem to be in chronological order…while dedicated to a W. H.

They were first published in 1599.

Everyone in 1599 was writing sonnets, but Shakespeare was far and away the master.

A Quick Paced Poetry Tour

How might we use the following forms in the classroom or change them to meet our teaching needs?

Alliteration

This form of poetic writing uses repeated consonants to leave a more memorable or lasting impression on the reader. We see this form a good deal in advertising (Frosted Flakes, Dunkin’ Donuts). Using this form in your poems will add spice to them.

The buzzing bees touched my ears,

With honey filled thoughts of food.

Who I Want To Be… When I Grow Up Poetry

I Could Be Like Poetry poetry allows the writer to view famous accomplishments and predict the positive role models they may emulate.

I could be like President Obama, Can I imagine? I could be like Martin Luther King, Can I talk freedom? I could be like Hank Aaron,

Can I hit homeruns? I could be like Robert Frost, Can I find the road less traveled? I could be like Van Gogh, Can I tell stories in color?

The Cinquain

The Cinquain employs five lines lines of poetry and a syllable requirement of 2, 4, 6, 8, 2 to grab the reader’s and writer’s interest.

Baseball

Hitting, running,

Fans yelling for some runs

Ibanez, Brett, Rose, Schmidt swinging,

Summer

The Diamante

The diamante consists of seven lines of poetry beginning and ending with opposites (day, night) while employing the following format.

One word as subject (1)

Two adjectives describing subject 1

Three participles (ing, ed) about subject 1 .

Four words about first (2) and last words (2)

Three participles (ing, ed) about subject 2

Two adjectives describing subject 2

One word as subject (2)

The Learic/Limerick

The limerick was invented by Edwin Lear and originally given his name. It is a five line poem. In the form of a, a, b, b, a. Some are bawdy but the original form was not.

The was a young lady from Grime,

Who thought that one was a prime.

It took a good teacher

To finally reach her.

And now one is unique all the time.

_____ TJPalumbo

Proverbs/Maxims

Proverbs/Maxims are one of the oldest poetic forms. They appear in the sanskrit, the bible, and the early literature of northern Europe. Just like self help columns they seem to give lessons in life in a rhythmic but meaningful form that attracts the reader or listener.

Early to bed, early to rise Makes a man, healthy, wealthy and wise.

Rain before seven, Clear skies by eleven.

Epitaphs

Epitaphs are sayings written on tombstones, delivered at funerals or appearing in death notices in the newspaper. Some epitaphs are poignant while others are humorous. Both forms, of course, are designed to give an insight to the deceased often in a small, short venue.

Here lies Bill who caught a chill,

While sledding on Blueberry Hill.

Mary’s attendance record is now broken.

Can you hear me now?

Telephone Poetry

Telephone poems are seven or ten line poems that use your telephone number to generate the syllables in each line of your poem. Another way to create this poem is to use one of the three letters that appear next to each number on the dial to begin each line of your descriptive poem.

License plate and street address poems follow a similar format. It is a great challenge to create a biographical poem using any one of these three poetic styles.

Da Da Poetry

Da Da Poetry is random poetry and has a large number of formats. The formats we like best use the triangular and diamante format.

Triangular form…Place your ideas in lines that have 1, 2, 3, 4, then five words.

Diamante form…Write on equal size rectangles or cut-out twenty five words from a magazine that relate to a theme, say vacations. Pick a beginning and ending title (summer/winter) and place cut-out words in lines that contain 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, then one word.

Poetry and The Five Senses

Sense Poetry uses a simple format that combines the five senses with creative and critical thinking…...and a poetry rhyme scheme.

Baseball

Baseball smells of hot dogs in the stands,

Baseball feels like slide burns on your hands.

Baseball tastes like the fresh outdoors,

Baseball looks like the rounding of the fours.

Baseball sounds like the joy of summer.

Love and The Five Senses

Love and Affection Poetry uses a simple format that combines the five senses with creative thinking and poetry rhyme schemes.

Annabelle Lee

Hypnotic is to look in your eyes,

I taste the sweetness of your lovely lips.

Hear the sound of my heart’s uncontrollable beat.

Let me touch you so gently on the face,

Please hear only me and no other.

Chronological Poetry

Chronological poetry takes an event and describes it in short bursts thereby giving the presentation of the event a poetic rhythm.

Baby Patricia

Born at 2:16 in the morning Brought home from the hospital on Tuesday, Wrapped in a bunny covered blanket, Crying left and right, Family gathered all around, Grandma kissed her, Dad says I have a brand new friend, I have enough friends.

Every Other Poetry

“Every Other” poetry employs a simple format. Select a poem of 12-16 lines but only write down lines 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 while leaving a space in between each line. Your task is to complete the missing lines with ideas of your own which will retain the author’s original theme or completely change the author’s theme.

Lower grades can change nursery rhymes while upper grades can change more sophisticated poems and writing styles. Have students do this with the first sixteen lines that start a book that children enjoy.

Mimic Poetry

“Mimic Poetry” is featured in Kenneth Koch’s book Rose, Rose How Did You Get The Red. He suggests having students change Blake’s poem “Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright” to another animal and reflecting that animal’s characteristics in Blake’s poem’s style.

1.Koala bear, koala bear, hanging in a tree.

Oh, what climbing symmetry.

2.Rabbit, rabbit fur so white.

Oh, what scampering day and night.

Poetry Booklist Suggestions

The study of poets and their art would be incomplete without a list of books to enhance and reinforce the study of poetry and creative writing. See if you can add some worthwhile books to the books listed below.

The New Poetry by Busta Rhymes

The Poetry Handbook by C. John Rightem

Shakespeare by N. O. Bacon

Winter Poems by Robert Frost

Turtles and Other Green Poems by John Shelley