Classes
VI-VIII
Presented By; Farah Kamal-Pakistan
Background : Poetry is a form of personal writing
which touches the heart and moods.
Poetry looks
and sounds different than other forms of text. This particular unit plan is designed to
provide students with opportunity to experience poetry writing describing and expressing
their emotions for their mothers with special significance to Mothers’ Day.
Objectives: By the end of the unit
students would be able to:
· Read and enjoy a selection of poems
written on personalities or describing an animal people or relationships
· Introduce to the “Special Poetry
Techniques”
· Develop a set of vocabulary for describing, expressing about mothers, their
love and importance.
· Use the generated vocabulary to compose
a free verse or rhyming poem on their mother
· Display the poems they wrote and read
the ones done by their peers
· Post their poems on the online Forums, iEARN Vision and iEARN Lewin
Resources and Preparation: A variety of the
selection of poems in the school library written on Vision as well as the Oxford Poem Tree etc. Language HOD and teachers collaborate with
the librarian to identify the selection.
Display poster on “Special Poetry Techniques” for each section. Copies for all grade VIII students.
Total Time: 3 English Language classes of 50
minutes each. 1 each of Library, Computer and Art Classes. Total 6-7, Teaching Periods.
Library Based Class- Poetry Reading
(Library
period or substitute period can be utilized for this purpose)
· Guide the students to sit in groups,
identify a poem read and discuss it:
-
the idea poet is try to convey in this
poem
-
the rhyming words in the poem
- what they found so special in this poem
Alternatively students can read some of the Online iEARN postings in the Lewin or A Vision and respond to them keeping the mind the above three questions.
Language Lesson-1: Language Classroom, What is Poetry?
· Spend few minutes to discuss with students/groups about the poem reading activity questions they focused in the library.
· Now write on the chalk board and explain involving the whole class “Special Poetry Techniques”. Remembering the terms Alliteration or Consonance is not important but their examples in the verses is very important so give students lots of example from the poems they have read.
Home Fun: Tell students to write as many words as they can think that can describe their mother, her personality, her relationship with them as son/daughter . They can use the following mind map:
 |
Language Lesson-2: I can write my own poem
· Draw the following mind maps on the
chalk board, brainstorm class to generate 3
sets of vocabulary one by one, teacher may need to give first word herself and students
would follow providing other words preferable rhyming:
 |
· In groups students would use the vocabulary to compose small verses for couplets.
· Teachers move round and facilitate
groups in composing their verses and arranging words.
Home Fun:
Students
continue working on their first drafts of the poems.
· Students write the final version of
their poems in their English Journals . Teachers move from group to group helping them
proof read and composing their verses.
· Students would make greeting cards and
write their poems to be taken home for their mothers.
· Students would word process their
poetry for display.
· Groups would post their poems on iEARN
Forums: Lewin and Vision for publication.
International Mothers Day 5th
May
Students
would put up displays of their poetry on the soft boards and library and corridors. Some
of the students will recite poems in the School Assembly.
………..x………..x…………
SPECIAL POETRY TECHNIQUES
Figures of Speech:
Poets use
the following techniques to create word pictures in their poems.
1. Simile
make a comparison using
the word 'like' or 'as'.
e.g: "When the sky begins to roar
Its like a lion at the door"(OUP The Poem Tree-5 Pg.30)
2. Metaphor compares two different things without
using the word of comparison 'like' or 'as'. e.g. "Trees
are the kindest things I know" (OUP The Poem Tree-3 Pg.15).
3. Personification describe something non human as if it
had human quality
e.g. "The forests with their myriad
tongues,
Shouted
liberty;" (OUP
The Poem Tree-6 Pg.27).
3. Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement. Sometimes
hyperbole meant to be funny.
e.g "His hands were
so dirty the soap ran and hid.”
The Sound of Poetry:
The
following techniques are used by poets in poems to make them pleasant sounding:
1. Alliteration
is the repetition of
consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
e.g. "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright”
(OUP
The Poem Tree-7 Pg.18) .
2. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in
the words.
e.g
"There to alight, at belfry
height" (OUP The Poem Tree-6 Pg.13)
3. Consonance is the repetition of consonant
anywhere in the word, not just at the beginning.e.g. “…and
, as might expected, edited the School Magazine”.
(OUP The Poem Tree-7 Pg.21) .
4. End
Rhyme is the use of rhyming words at the end of two or more lines of the poetry e.g "As if he had no independent mind
Or will of any kind."(OUP The Poem Tree-5 Pg.35).
5. Internal
Rhyme is the use of
rhyming words within a line of poetry.
e.g "No! the hare's rash, making a dash"(OUP
The Poem Tree-6 Pg.13) .
6. Onomatopoeia
is the use of words
that sounds very much like the noise they name. e.g "How the small creatures of the woods
Must quake and cower as I pass by!
" (OUP The Poem
Tree-5 Pg.19).
7. Repetition
is the techniques of repeating a word or phrase for rhythm or emphasis "Where the mind is
without fear and the head is held high;
Where
knowledge is free
Where
the world has not broken up into fragments
By
narrow domestic walls;" " (OUP The
Poem Tree-6 Pg.19).
 |
8. Rhythm is the way a poem flows from one idea
to another. In free verse poetry , the rhythm follows the poets natural voice. Almost as
if he she were speaking to a reader.
In more traditional poems a regular rhythm is established.
e.g of poem with regular rhythm:
And dress by yellow candle- light
In summer quiet the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.” (OUP The Poem Tree-3 Pg.8).
e.g of free
verse: “To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from
day to day,
To the last syllable of
recorded time;”
(OUP The Poem Tree-8 Pg.23).
....x…x….x…