Poetry Project
EDU 530
Create a “Beast Feast”
Objectives:
1. Students will read aloud a poem from Beast Feast by
Douglas Florian.
2. Students will define and identify a rhyming couplet in a
poem.
3. Students will compose their own animal poem to create a
class “beast feast.”
Materials: Douglas
Florian’s book Beast Feast, paper, and pencil.
Relevant
Vocabulary:
Couplet: A pair of lines of poetry that are usually rhymed.
Procedure:
1. Each student will receive a
copy of an animal poem from Beast Feast.
2. Each student will read his/her
poem silently and then read it aloud to the class.
3. As the students read their poems, the
teacher will ask them to identify the rhyming pattern in each poem.
4. The teacher will ask the students what they think a
rhyming couplet is and lead the students to the correct definition. The students will identify couplets in the
rest of the poems that are read.
5. The teacher will give each student a slip of paper. On the paper, the students will write down
an animal name (other than those from the Beast Feast poems) and one
characteristic of that animal.
6. The teacher will collect all of
the papers and pass them out so that each student receives a new animal.
7. The students will use the animal and characteristic they received
to write their own animal poem. The
poem must contain at least one rhyming couplet.
8. Students will share their poems
with partners to get ideas for revising them.
9. Students will present their revised poem to the class.
Evaluation:
The teacher will evaluate the
students on the presentation of their poems.
Extension: For an art lesson, students will create a
watercolor drawing of their animals, just as the author of Beast Feast
did. The poems and pictures will then be
put together for a class Beast Feast book.
A
Week with Jack Prelutsky
Philosophy/Rationale of Unit:
How many times have I heard the collective groan of students when they are told that they will be reading or writing poetry? Students also have difficulty interpreting poems, which they are asked to do on proficiency tests. However, students need to see that poetry does not have to be an exercise in torture. Jack Prelutsky is a popular author of children’s poetry, whose poetry concerns topics that children can relate to such as nightmares, monsters, food, and animals. Prelutsky’s poetry will help students to see the joy of poetry as well as inspire them with ideas for writing their own poetry.
Unit Goals:
1. Students will become familiar with the poetry of author Jack
Prelutsky.
2. Students will complete a variety of poetry
exercises in order to create their own poems.
3.
Students will publish a poem on Jack Prelutsky’s website.
To
complete this unit, these items will be needed: books by Jack Prelutsky,
notebook paper, construction paper, crayons, markers, fruits and vegetables,
and maps, and a computer with internet access.
Lesson 1
Objectives:
1.
Students
will read a biography of Jack Prelutsky.
2.
Students
will create a notebook of poetry ideas.
3.
Students
will finish a poem started by Jack Prelutsky.
4.
Students
will define and identify a stanza.
Procedure: The teacher introduces the author Jack Prelutsky and shows several
of his books to the class. Then the students read a biography of Jack
Prelutsky. Next, the students go to Prelutsky’s website at http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetwit/index.htm and read his writing tips.
Following a tip from the author, students create a
poetry notebook using construction paper for the cover and lined paper
inside. Finally, the students take Prelutsky’s writing challenge and
finish one of his poems.
Finish My
Poem: (from the website)
Poem
1
When I awoke one morning,
A stork was on my head. I asked,
"What are you doing there?"
It looked at me and said . . .
Hint: If you
wish, you may substitute any one-syllable bird, bug, or mammal for the stork.
You may also change the word was to "sat," "stood,"
"snoozed, "perched," or any other verb you think is appropriate. You'll probably wind up with a very
different poem if there's a mouse on your head instead of a moose.
Poem 2
Almost every afternoon,
I eat pickles with a spoon.
Every evening right at six,
I eat pickles stacked on bricks.
Hint: You can have a lot of fun writing about other
ways to eat pickles. You can also use jellybeans, bananas, or potato chips
instead of pickles — and explain the different ways that you eat them. It's up
to you.
Lesson 2
Objectives:
1.
Students
will read the poem “A Pizza the Size of the Sun.”
2.
Students
will write a poem that imitates “A Pizza the Size of the Sun.
Procedure:
Warm-up: In their notebooks, students write down a letter of the alphabet and as many words as they can think of that begin with that letter. Next, the students use the words to write a tongue twister. Students then trade papers and try to read each other’s tongue twisters.
Lesson: The teacher passes out copies of Prelutsky’s poem “A Pizza the Size of the Sun,” and the students count off by four’s. One’s read the first stanza aloud, two’s the second stanza, etc. Then the students write a poem that imitates what has just been read. “I’m making a __________ (food) the size of a ___________.”
Finally, students share poems by reading them aloud to the class.
Lesson 3
Objectives:
1. Students will read several poems from Prelutsky’s book Ride a Purple Pelican and identify their common characteristics.
2. Students will write a poem that includes those common characteristics.
3. Students will define and identify examples of alliteration.
Procedure:
Warm-up: In their notebooks, students write their own list poem. The teacher shows the students an object and they use as many adjectives as they can think of to describe it.
Lesson: The teacher shares several poems from Ride a Purple Pelican and the students identify the common characteristics of the poems. The poems include the name of a place, animal, and food. Alliteration is defined and students identify examples in the poems. Then the students write a poem with these characteristics:
A) Name of a place: country, state, or city
B) Name of an animal
C) Name of a food
D) Three of these adjectives: terrible, broken, orange, mysterious,
perfect, gentle
E) One alliteration
The students then find the place they mentioned in the poem on a map. Next, they draw the perimeter of the country or state on construction paper and glue the final draft of their poem to it.
Lesson 4
Objectives:
1. Students will study a fruit or vegetable and brainstorm thoughts and feelings associated with it.
2. Students will write a poem from the point of view of the fruit or vegetable.
Procedure:
Warm-up: For a Dada exercise, students take out a book and write down one word from any page in their notebooks. The students then pass the book to the left and choose another word. This is repeated several times and the poems are shared.
Lesson:
The students read Prelutsky’s poems “A Fine Head of Lettuce” and “An
Unsavory Tomato.” The teacher divides the students into groups of three, and
each group receives a fruit or vegetable.
The students brainstorm thoughts and feelings that they associate with
the fruit or vegetable and compose a poem about the fruit or vegetable.
Objectives:
1.
Students will read a
poem from Monday’s Troll by Jack Prelutsky.
2.
As a class, the
students will create a new monster poem using lines from each poem in Monday’s
Troll.
3. Each student will create a picture of the new monster.
Procedure:
Warm-up: Students
write a bio-poem about themselves in their notebooks.
Lesson:
The teacher gives each student one poem from Monday’s Troll
to read silently. The students write
down one line from the poem that tells about the monster. The lines that the students wrote down are
combined into one poem to create a new monster. The poem is read aloud with each student reciting the line that
he orshe contributed. Finally, the
students draw their own picture of the new monster.
Objectives:
1.
Students will read
the poem “A Remarkable Adventure.”
2.
Students will
brainstorm lost homework excuses and write a poem about an outrageous excuse
for not having a homework
assignment.
Procedure:
Warm-up: In their notebooks, students brainstorm excuses for not
having their homework completed.
Lesson:
The teacher reads the poem “A Remarkable Adventure.” The students choose their favorite excuse that they wrote in
their notebook and compose a poem about it.
Students then share their poems with the class.
Culminating Activity:
Students
choose their favorite poem that was written during the unit and return to Jack
Prelutsky’s website. The poem will be
submitted to the website. Each student
receives a certificate signed by Jack Prelutsky, with a chance that the poem
could be posted on the website.
Evaluation:
The teacher evaluates the students on the completion of all
writing activities in the poetry notebook, the submission of a poem to the
website, and the presentation of the poetry in class.
Poetry Writing with Jack
Prelutsky. Scholastic,
Inc. 2001-1996.
<http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetwith/index.html>
Prelutsky, Jack.
The Dragons are Singing Tonight.
New York: Greenwillow Books,
1993.
---. For
Laughing Out Loud: Poems to Tickle Your
Funnybone. New York: Alfred
A.
Knopf,
1991.
---. The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1980.
---. Monday’s Troll. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1996.
---. New Kid on the Block. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1984.
---.
A Pizza the Size of the Sun. New York: Scholastic, 1994.
---.
Ride a Purple Pelican. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1986.
---.
Something Big Has Been Here. New York:
William Morrow and Company, 1990.
Selected
Poems
Facing
and Communicating- Come
home Dave.
That
will be our life Why
do you stay,
in
the word in poetry. gone
so many hours of the day?
Are
we to teach this? Dr. Laura, Rush, and the Reds
Am
I to write this?
are calling you,
I
have found myself embarked But
there are so many things
on
the longer and wearier and that
we should do.
harder
road to the creation of a poem. Vacations
and dinners we have ignored,
Every
man is tasked to make his life, What
if we could not do them anymore?
even
in details, Much
more time could be spent together
worthy
of contemplation if
only the radio didn’t broadcast
of
his most elevated and critical hour. no
matter the weather.
Will
form and content, Come
home Dave.
relation,
and function, The
station will run.
reach
and merge in my poetry? Even
while we are out having fun.
Will
genius not be so rare as I sometimes think?
Morning
is when I’m awake and
there
is a dawn in me.
It
has come as the greatest gift of heaven,
and
is the channel by which I have received
My
greatest blessing.
Waves Crashing Upon Thy Heart
How
did I get into this debacle?
I
assemble myself on Daytona Beach,
Trying
to comprehend.
Strutting
around,
Waves
rising and falling,
Like
the hopes and dreams of my heart.
I
hear that song playing,
“Life’s
A dance, you learn as you go.
Sometimes
you lead, sometimes you follow.”
When
I’m really wondering how do I find
The
nearest Stairway to Heaven?
I
try to remove my jacket, but the zipper is stuck.
There
comes a break in the purple sky.
I
can see that I will overcome.
All
that my secret jealousy has undone.
If
only I rejoin the dance we call,
“Life.”