Unit

1
Unit 4

• POETRY VERSE

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POETS
NCTE

• David McCord
• Aileen Fisher
• Karla Kuskin
• Myra Cohn Livingston
• Eve Merriam
• John Ciardi
• Lilian Moore
• Arnold Adoff
• Valerie Worth
• Barbara Esbensen
• Eloise Greenfield

• Jane Yolen
• Alison Shaw
• Holling C. Holling
• E. Cohat
• Ronald Rood
• Anita Malnig

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POETRY CHILDREN

• Intuition of truth.
• Meaning and sound -- arranged in beautiful form
• Carefully selected words
• Understanding is continual process, built on
  firsthand experience.

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Value of Poetry

• Makes us laugh.
• Create images.
• Express feelings.
• Promote Language Learning -- changes thoughts and
  our language.
• Poet tells us what happens, not what happened.
• Promotes school learning memory, listening,
  vocabulary, reading, phonemic awareness,
  beginning consonants, writing, thinking.

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Poetry Promotes Language Learning

• Contains highly charged words.
• Uses only a few words to say a great deal.
• Is melodic -- sings as it says.
• Contains rhythm, repetition, and rhyme.
• Captures the essence of a concept.
• Says more than it says.
• Has layers of meaning.
• Is the natural language of childhood.

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CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

• Longevity, award winning, widely recognized,
  positive literary reviews.
• Judge overall nature -- diversity of content,
  mood, language use, and variety of forms.
• Understandable -- laughter, images, express
  feelings.
• Appealing -- humorous, strong rhythm rhyme.
• Childrens preferences.

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Childrens Poetry Choices

• Contemporary
• Understandable
• Narrative
• Rhyme, rhythm and sound
• Relate to personal experiences
• Dislike - figurative language and imagery
• Humorous

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Classroom Traits

• Girls like more than boys.
• Teachers attitudes practices make difference.
• Read aloud with enthusiasm.

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Play with Poetry

• Teacher performs -- models
• Students recite as group
• Invite individuals to say short poems
• Ask individuals to recite poems of their own
  choosing

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POETRY LANGUAGE USE

• Elements of sound, rhythm and meaning manipulated
• Sound and rhythm more pronounced
• Meaning more condensed

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POETRY TECHNIQUES

• Words as sound
• Words as rhythm
• Words as meaning

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Words as Sound

• Rhyme -- ending sounds
• runover rhyme -- end of one line to beginning of
  next
• link rhymes --
• Alliteration - repetition of initial consonants
• Assonance - repetition of vowel sounds at close
  intervals
• Onomatopoeia -- words created from natural sounds
  -- associated with thing or action

13
Words as Rhythm

• Recurrence of specific sounds or stressed and
  unstressed syllables
• Alternating accented and unaccented syllables
• Meter (metrical)-- certain syllables regularly
  stressed o accented -- fixed pattern
• Manipulation of syntax -- makes distinct from
  prose -- creates more meaning than the literal
  sense

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Words as Meaning

• Many layers of meaning -- many interpretations
• Literal/concrete level -- young children
• Figurative Language -- meaning beyond literal
• Metaphor -- comparison -- inferred
• Simile -- comparison -- like or as
• Imagery -- arrest our senses
• Denotation-- literal meaning of word
• Connotation -- suggested meaning of word

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POETRY FORMS

• Narrative -- tells story
• Lyric - statement of mood or feeling (verses)
• Free verse- -- unrhymed -- arrangement on page
  -- concrete poetry
• Haiku -- Japanese -- beginning
• Cinquain - unrhymed lines
• Concrete - shape or picture poems

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Poetry Forms (continued)

• Limerick -- light verse -- 5 lines -- rhyme
  scheme of a-a-b-b-a
• Ballad -- story told in verse
• folk ballads (John Henry)or literary ballads
  (James Taylor, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen,
  Paul Simon, Dan Fogelberg)
• ballads -- heroic deeds, murder, unrequited love,
  feuds

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Poetry Forms (continued)

• Sonnet -- 14 lines, rhymed iambic pentameter
• Petrarchan -- 8 lines, followed by 6 lines
• Shakespearean -- 3-4 line stanzas, followed by
  rhyming couplet
• themes love, friendship, time, meaning of life

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MOST ABSTRACT POETRY

• Haiku -- beginning -- natural worlds, particular
  event happening at moment
• three lines 7 syllables 5, 7, and 5
• Cinquain -- 5 unrhymed lines -- 2-4-6-8-2
  syllable pattern
• 1 word -- title (noun)
• 2 words -- describing title
• 3 words -- that show action
• 4 words -- that show feeling or emotion
• 1 word -- synonym for title

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COLLECTIONS

• ANTHOLOGIES COLLECTIONS
• SPECIALIZED - work by several poets on one
  subject (holidays, monsters, dinosaurs, horses)
• GENERALIZED -- works by many poets on several
  subjects
• INDIVIDUAL -- WORK OF ONLY ONE POET

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NCTE AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN POETRY FOR CHILDREN

• Given to poets considered to be very best for the
  entire body of poets work -- not a single
  collection or poem.
• 1977 to 1982 -- annually (ran out of poets)
• 1983 to date -- given every 3 years

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POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM

• Teacher loves it!
• Avoid constant search for meanings.
• Read with delight enthusiasm.
• Surround the children with poetry.
• Begin with favorites -- humorous and narrative --
  strong rhyme, rhythm sound elements.
• Encourage oral interpretation choral reading,
  choral speaking, dramatization.
• Copying or writing (cards, posters).

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POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM

• Make part of daily life -- recite your favorites.
• Dont require memorization -- unless they choose.
• Read several times a day.
• Put on charts.
• Subscribe to poetry supplements.
• Regular time for sharing.

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POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM

• Encourage clapping or tapping pencils as poems
  are read.
• Draw pictures in response.
• Discussions.