What Research Says:
Children must be actively involved in poetry, as readers & as writers.
Neurological impressioning is a proven method for building language storehouses.
Studying poetry with music built an appreciation for poetry and helped students to learn other things .

1. Share: Hey World, Here I Am by Jean Little. (Harper, 1986)
2. Warm Up: Group Reading
“Indian Chant ” by Bill Martin, Jr.
Beat beat beat upon the tom tom
Beat beat beat upon the drum
Beat beat beat upon the tom tom
Beat beat beat upon the drum

Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left,
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle to the left
Beat beat beat upon the tom tom
Beat beat beat upon the drum

Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle at the wrist bell
Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle at the knee bell
Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle at the wrist bell
Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle at the knee bell

Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left,
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle to the left
Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle at the wrist bell
Jingle jangle jingle jangle jingle at the knee bell

Mississippi river morning, Mississippi sun
Mississippi river warning, thunder wonder done
Mississippi river raining, Mississippi river flood
Mississippi river waning, oozy newsy mud

Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left
Shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle to the left
Mississippi river morning, Mississippi sun
Mississippi river warning, thunder wonder done

Reprinted with permission.

3. Rhythm Reading
Herman found a big dead bug
Sister put it in the trash,
But before the trash is burned,
Herman wants his bug returned.

A boy named Les was such a mess,
His stringy hair was everywhere.
And then one day his mom was firm
Gave Les a curly girly perm.

Jack McPhee caught a bee
Sitting on his big back porch.
Was it Jack, or was the bee,
Sitting there for all to see?

Tilly Witch placed a hex,
On a boy named John.
But then he took geometry
And now the hex-a-gon.

4. Elaborate on the poem. Add words or sounds
Older students can elaborate as well using Paul Revere’s Ride, Love Song by Paul Lawrence Dunbar or a host of other poems.

5.Use as a pattern:
Share Grandma’s Patchy Pocket by Nancy Polette. Kayden, 2005. (Primary)
Add more verses:
In Grandma’s patchy pocket
She found a (valentine)
So she (flew) to town to trade it
For a (great big ball of twine.)

6. Use as a pattern (Intermediate)
Louder than a clap of thunder,
louder than an eagle screams,
louder than a dragon blunders,
or a dozen football teams.
louder than a four-alarmer,
or a rushing waterfall,
louder than a knight in armor
jumping from a ten-foot wall.
louder than stampeding cattle,
louder than a cannon roars,
louder than a giant’s rattle,
that’s how loud my father SNORES!

from The New Kid On The Block by Jack Prelutsky ©1984. Used with permission of Greenwillow Books.

Try:
Softer than
Happier than
Bigger than
Angrier than
or any other comparison

7. Personification Poetry
Choose: daybreak, evening, night, autumn, winter, spring or an abstract topic: love, courage etc.
Answer the questions
What are you?____________________________
Where do you live?________________________
Favorite colors.____________________________
Favorite clothes.___________________________
What is your job?__________________________
Who are your relatives?_____________________
Where do you vacation?_____________________
Favorite holiday.____________________________
How do you move?__________________________

8. Reverse Personification
List objects found on a car, in a garden, a kitchen etc. and use them to describe a person or a book character.
Who Is He?
He steers through life
On a seat of Penury
In a chassis of greed
Clutching every penny
Slamming the brakes on charity
And guarding the key to the engine of prosperity.
Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol.

9. Found Poetry
Underline key words in a poem. Re-arrange them to create a new poem.

A. See A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson for the poem: “The Wind.”

I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky
And all around I heard you pass
Like ladies skirts across the grass
O wind, a-blowing all day long
O wind, that sings so loud a song.

B. Choose a prose paragraph .
Underline important words. Use the words to say in poetry the same information that is given in the paragraph.

10. Introducing vocabulary
Underline words in a poem students don’t know. Look them up! Now does the poem make more sense?
“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take without oppress of toll,
How frugal is the chariot that bears the human soul.

Emily Dickinson

Tell students about the poet. Use any words underlined in the poem in a paragraph describing Emily Dickinson life.

11. Patterns from the Masters
Frequently the woods are pink,
Frequently are brown.
Frequently the hills undress (personification)
Behind my native town. (Emily Dickinson )

(Swift) things are beautiful
(Swallows and deer)
And (lightning that falls)
(Bright-veined and clear.) Elizabeth Coatsworth

Who has seen the (wind)
Neither (you nor I)
But when (the trees bow down their heads)
The (wind is passing by)
Christina Rosetti

12. Introducing Metaphor
Hold fast to (dreams)
For if (dreams) (die)
Life is (a broken-winged bird)
(That cannot fly). Langston Hughes

13. Combining Metaphor and Personification
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And the highwayman came riding, riding, riding up to the old inn door
Using the pattern to write about the desert.

A. List things the desert reminds you of. (Ex ample: a huge piece of burnt toast)
B. List things the desert does that a person does.( EX:trembles.)
C. List how it does these thing. (Adverbs)
D. Choose from each list and put together for one line of poetry that uses personification and metaphor.

14. Parody
See: Poem Stew by William Cole for “If Walt Whitman Had Written Humpty Dumpty”. (Harper, 1981)

15. Integrate with subject areas.
History: See: Hand in Hand: American History Through Poetry by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Rhyolite: The True Story of a Ghost Town by Diane Siebert. Clarion, 2003.
Biography: See The Microscope by Maxine Kumin. Harper 1986.
The Fighter Wore A Skirt by Nancy Polette. Pieces of Learning, 2003.
Geography: A World of Wonders by J. Patrick Lewis. Dial, 2003.

16. Integrate Poetry and Art
See: Paint Me A Poem
Display art prints in the rom. Challenge students to find a poem that will go with an art print and read the poem to the class.

Resources
Books by Nancy Polette available from Pieces of Learning 1990 Market Road, Marion, IL 62959

Call toll free for a catalog 1-800-729-5137.
Flying With Mother Goose
The Fighter Wore A Skirt
Poetry Patterns
The Best of Nancy Polette
Research Reports to Knock Your Teacher’s Socks Off (contains poetry patterns)

Workshops