Mr. Vital’s Lower School Poetry 2016-2017
(See directions below)
Week / Date / Skill/theme / Title & Author / URL1 / 9/06/16 / New Year / The Arrow and the Song: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow /
2 / 9/13/16 / School Experience / When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer: Walt Whitman /
3 / 9/20/16 / History / The Charge of the Light Brigade: Alfred, Lord Tennyson /
4 / 9/27/16 / Fun / Jabberwocky: Lewis Carroll /
5 / 10/4/16 / Fall Season / Autumn: Alexander S. Pushkin /
6 / 10/11/16 / Fall Season / Autumn Love: Li Ching Chao /
7 / 10/18/16 / Halloween / The Witches’ Spell from Macbeth: William Shakespeare /
8 / 10/25/16 / Social Class / The Golf Links: Sarah N. Cleghorn /
9 / 11/1/16 / Veterans Day / Song of Three Soldiers: Stephen Vincent Benet /
10 / 11/8/16 / Personification / Death Be Not Proud: John Donne /
11 / 11/15/16 / Holiday Shopping / At the Galleria Shopping Mall: Tony Hoagland /
12 / 11/22/16 / Maple Syrup Harvest / Maple Syrup: Donald Hall /
13 / 11/29/16 / Winter / The Snow is Melting: Kobayashi Issa /
14 / 12/6/16 / Christmas / A Visit From St. Nicholas: Clement Clarke Moore /
15 / 12/13/16 / Life’s priorities / Sound and Sense: Alexander Pope /
16 / 1/3/17 / Thriving for success / The Olympic Girl: John Betjeman /
17 / 1/10/17 / Poetic Pace / Boots: Rudyard Kipling /
18 / 1/17/17 / National Pride / We Are More: Shane Koyczan /
19 / 1/24/17 / Black History/Civil Rights / Let America Be America Again: Langston Hughes /
20 / 1/31/17 / Valentine’s Day / First Love: John Clare /
21 / 2/7/17 / President’s Day / My Children-Home I See Again: Abraham Lincoln /
22 / 2/14/17 / Spring is coming / The Hand: Mary Ruefle /
23 / 2/28/17 / Choices / The Road Not Taken: Robert Frost /
24 / 3/7/17 / Memories / Memorabilia: Robert Browning /
25 / 3/14/17 / Civil Rights / Bread and Roses: James Oppenheim /
26 / 3/21/17 / Baseball Season / Casey at the Bat: Ernest Thayer /
27 / 3/28/17 / The Wild West / Buffalo Bill: E. E. Cummings /
28 / 4/4/17 / Unwanted Progress / To a Mouse: Robert Burns /
29 / 4/11/17 / Civil Rights/ Patriots Day / This Land is Your Land: Woody Guthrie /
30 / 4/25/17 / Shopping / Allegory of the Supermarket: Stephanie Brown /
31 / 5/2/17 / One’s existence / If: Rudyard Kipling /
32 / 5/9/17 / Memorial Day / America: Walt Whitman /
33 / 5/16/17 / Memorial Day / For a War Memorial: G. K. Chesterton /
34 / 5/23/17 / 6th grade Accomplishment / What is Success: Bessie Stanley /
35 / 5/30/17 / Summer’s here / A Summer Wooing: Louise Chandler Moulton /
INSTRUCTIONS: Students will need a journal for this class and a section (35 pages) should be set up for poetry. Each week’s poetry homework will be issued on Monday, and will be reviewed in Tuesday’s class. Questions 1-5 MUST be answered with complete sentences. No credit will be given to prompts that are missing, or incomplete.
NOTE: If the link does not work – Please search for the poem using Google.
Each Week, students must read the poem assigned, and complete the following prompts in their journal:
Date:Title and Poem Number:
Author:
- Who narrates the poem?
- What line is your favorite? Why?
- What is this poem about (minimum three sentences)?
- Are there any literary devices (metaphor, alliteration, personification, etc.) used?
- What is your impression of the poem? Did you like/dislike it? Why?
Also, Students must draw picture(s) to emphasize the meaning/theme, or to describe an aspect of the poem. This will be on the adjacent page.