Stage 1 Writing: Poetry Term: Weeks: 1 – 5

Foundation Statement
Students communicate with a wide range of people on familiar and introduced topics to achieve a variety of purposes. They interact effectively, adopting new speaking skills, in order to give confident oral presentations. They listen to instructions and share ideas with peers to complete tasks. Students recognise that spoken language has a range of purposes and audiences and use this knowledge when attempting to communicate effectively with others. They investigate the different types and organisational patterns of common spoken texts and recognise features within them.
Students read and view short literary and factual texts, using an increasing variety of skills and strategies including context, grammar, word usage and phonics to make connections between their own experiences and information in texts. Students read, interpret and discuss texts, including visual and multimedia texts, using a range of skills and strategies. They explore and identify ways texts differ according to purpose, audience and subject and understand that people produce texts. Students recognise the basic structure and grammatical features of a limited range of text types.
Students write simple literary and factual texts on familiar topics for known readers by planning and reviewing their writing. They write using basic grammatical features and conventions of punctuation, showing awareness of different purposes, audiences and subject matter. Students spell using knowledge of sight words, letter-sound correspondence and other strategies. They write using letters of consistent size and slope in NSW Foundation Style and use computer technology to produce texts, recognising simple conventions, language and functions.
Social Purpose
Poetry is a channel of communication that is used to achieve a range of social purposes.
Poetry expresses feelings and reflections on experience, people and events. Poetry is an aesthetic experience that works mainly through our emotions, sensory experiences and imaginative perceptions. A poem may focus on the individual feelings and reflections of the poet, or it may tell a story, or describe people, places and things in distinctive and sometimes unusual ways.
Poetry is often written with the expectation that it will be read aloud. In poetic language, sound patterns and rhythmic qualities are an important part of the meaning. Some poems may make use of regular patterns of rhyme and rhythm, while others make use of free verse form. The sound qualities in poems are emphasised by devices such as rhythm, alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia.
Poetic texts often contain images that are expressed in striking ways. These images may be presented through different kinds of techniques such as simile, metaphor and personification. The main purpose for teaching poetry should be to provide for students’ enjoyment and appreciation of ideas and language in poetry lessons. Poetry includes a range of text types such as narrative, recount and description. It is a channel of communication for different text types.
Structure
Each poem could be approached as a series of steps or moves. These steps are generally signaled in the stanza or verse structures. There is a vast range of devices that poets draw upon to shape their poems such as alliteration, assonance, simile, metaphor. In all poetry, rhythm is a constant feature.
As Samuel Taylor Coleridge states, ‘Poetry is the best words in the best order’. When considering poetry, it is useful to focus on the poet’s choices of words and order of words and how this enhances meaning in the poem.
Outcomes
WS1.9 Plans, reviews and produces a small range of simple literary and factual texts for a variety of purposes on familiar topics for known readers.
WS1.10 Produces texts using the basic grammatical features and punctuation conventions of the text type.
WS1.11 Uses knowledge of sight words and letter–sound correspondences and a variety of strategies to spell familiar words.
WS1.12 Produces texts using letters of consistent size and slope in NSW Foundation Style and using computer technology.
WS1.13 Identifies how own texts differ according to their purpose, audience and subject matter.
WS1.14 Identifies the structure of own literary and factual texts and names a limited range of related grammatical features and conventions of written language.
Indicators
• Uses drawings to accompany a poem when relevant
• Links ideas in poetry writing
• Writes own poems using the structure of a familiar poem as a guide
• Includes simple descriptions of familiar people or things in poetry
• Uses rhyme, repetition, patterns of rhythm, alliteration in writing poems.
ESL Scales Reading and Writing
ESL Scales levels: Beginning Reading and Responding 1, 2, 3; Reading and Responding 1; Beginning Writing 1, 2, 3; Writing 1
ê  Provide visuals for the key nouns/verbs in a rhyme or short poem that the students already know, and then scribe the words under the visuals. Progress to a word–visual matching game then a speech–text matching activity.
ê  Participate in shared reading of short, known poems.
ê  Poems and rhymes at this level and stage are probably more effective if they remain in the talking and listening strands.
ESL Scales levels: Reading and Responding 2, 3; Writing 2, 3
ê  Discuss the humour in any poem. Ensure any assumed background knowledge (implicit in the poem) is shared by all the students.
ê  Distribute text type examples to students and ask them to locate the poem, the narrative and the information report. Point out layout features that are different in poems.
Content – Mid Stage 1
WS1.9 Learning to Write - Producing Texts«  Practise joint and independent constructions of a variety of simple text types on familiar topics for a known audience, eg recount of personal experience, simple procedure, description of familiar people or things.
WS1.10 WS1.11 WS1.12 Learning to Write - Skills and Strategies«  Use a pro forma with headings as a basis for writing simple texts.
«  Read their own writing aloud to self-correct and clarify meaning.
«  Use illustrations with appropriate labels to support texts.
«  Build handwriting skills such as forming most letters of the alphabet correctly and writing clearly in straight lines from left to right using letters of uniform size, shape and spacing.
«  Develop computer skills, including knowledge of letters on keyboard and words associated with computers (eg keyboard, mouse, disk, screen, cursor). / WS1.13Learning about Writing - Context and Text«  Encourage students to write a variety of simple texts through modelling.
«  Design joint and independent construction activities, drawing students’ attention to the text purpose and structure.
«  Provide pro formas with guided questions to scaffold students’ writing.
«  Encourage students to think about what they know about a topic before writing.
«  Encourage students to identify a target audience before writing.
WS1.14
Learning About Writing - Language Structures and Features«  Make explicit the organisational stages of literary and factual texts.
«  Discuss with students how adjectives are used to provide more information about nouns.
«  Talk with students about the punctuation needed for their own writing.
«  Model proofreading and editing, eg circle a word that does not look right.
Content – Later Stage 1
WS1.9Learning to Write - Producing Texts«  Engage in joint and independent constructions of a range of text types, eg recounts of personal experience, simple procedures, descriptions of familiar people or things, poems, elementary stories, information reports, basic explanations, written opinions
«  Respond to questions about their own writing from a variety of audiences, eg teacher, family member, classmates, older or younger students, teacher’s aide, classroom visitor
«  Use headings to indicate topic of text
«  Use graphics to accompany text where relevant
WS1.10 WS1.11 WS1.12Learning to Write - Skills and Strategies«  Prepare for writing, eg by planning text structure into a framework such as a matrix, flowchart or semantic map, by taking notes from written texts
«  Use subject–verb and noun–pronoun agreement in their own writing
«  Begin to proofread and edit their own texts for publication
«  Use common punctuation, eg upper and lower case, correct spacing, question mark, and experiment with more advanced punctuation for different effects
«  Spell high-frequency and common sight words accurately and use knowledge of letter combinations and blends when writing new words
«  Develop handwriting of consistent size and spacing in NSW Foundation Style
«  Use computer software to write texts. / WS1.13Learning about Writing - Context and Text«  Discuss and explain the purpose and audience of a variety of simple literary and factual texts in books, including media and electronic texts
«  Model how to select and organise information before writing
«  Model how to consider purpose and audience before writing
«  Provide pro formas with guided questions to scaffold students’ writing
WS1.14
Learning About Writing - Language Structures and Features«  Make explicit the basic structure and grammar of a variety of text types, including information report, procedure, recount and narrative
«  Assist students to identify verbs and verb groups
«  Provide opportunities for writing conferences to support editing and proofreading
«  Point out clauses to students and explain their purpose
«  Model how to provide feedback to a writer
«  Model strategies for ensuring the use of correct spelling and punctuation in texts.
Grammar Focus
Grammatical patterns in poetry vary enormously. Poetry tends to rely on features of textual cohesion such as word chains based on such things as repetition, synonym and antonym. Poetry that tells a story is likely to use the grammatical features of story texts such as action verbs and noun groups, adverbs and adverbial phrases.
Teaching and Learning Experiences
Lesson 1: / Date
Give students poems that will be models for joint construction. Select appropriate models. Display models in the classroom.
Jointly construct a refrain for a poem on a particular topic then divide the class into small groups. Ask each group to write a verse for the poem. Make the poem into a class big book for shared, guided and independent reading experiences.
Lesson 2: / Date
Have students jointly construct a variety of simple poems, related to personal experience, eg shape poems, rhyming couplets, innovations on familiar poems, sensory poems.
Lesson 3: / Date
Encourage students to innovate on a variety of simple poems independently.
• Encourage students to use poems, words and letters in the classroom environment as models for writing poetry.
• Provide opportunities for students to read aloud their own writing and to make revisions to clarify meaning.
Lesson 4: / Date
Have students prepare poems for publication, paying attention to layout and visual features.
Have students substitute key words from a familiar poem to generate a different meaning.
Lesson 5: / Date
Have students copy favourite poems into a big book class anthology.
Lesson 6: / Date
Have students complete a cloze activity and compare their choice of words with those chosen by the poet. Have them discuss the different meanings created by different word choices. Point out poetic devices such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, word pictures.
Lesson 7: / Date
Have students write chants and raps for a class anthology or school newsletter.
• Have students write and illustrate alliterative alphabets or number poems for class display.
Lesson 8: / Date
Encourage students to add to word banks of sensory words around a specific theme or topic to be used in independent writing activities.
Encourage students to use word banks of adjectives and adverbs to write sensory poems.
Lesson 9: / Date
Hand out two sheets of paper to students and ask them to list three or four everyday objects, eg toothbrush, school bag, computer etc, on one sheet and the same number of actions, eg skipping, laughing, reading etc, on the other. Jointly construct a poem linking the objects with an action, eg: ‘Have you ever seen?’ Have you ever seen a toothbrush skipping? Have you ever seen a school bag reading? Have you ever seen a computer laughing? I have!
Lesson 10: / Date
Select a poem; write it on chart paper with words omitted. Read the poem several times to get the feel of the rhythm and meaning. Discuss each omission in turn. List all suggestions from the students for words omitted. Discuss why certain choices were made and vote on the most pleasing/appropriate. Read the original poem. Reflect on the poet’s choice and that of the group.
Lesson 11: / Date
Have students copy poems into a shape in which the shape and position of the letters and words reflect the meaning, eg a bear poem in a bear shape. Also refer to Max Fatchen’s ‘Skateboard’, Elizabeth Honey’s ‘Honey Sandwich’.

Assessment

/ Evaluation
«  Anecdotal Observations
«  Desk grid
«  Tagged Work sample: Lesson

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