Growing Young Poets

My first aim is to turn children on to poetry, so I usually begin by sharing a poem/poems I believe they will like. (The authors Caren Stuart suggested, Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, are great or choose one of your own favorites.) I may read one poem that rhymes and one that does not and ask the children how the poems sound different. The students are quite responsive and their comments usually lead us to the conclusion that some poems rhyme and some do not. This also clues the students in to listen to the sounds of poetry as we continue reading and writing poems.

Secondly, I want to get young people involved with poetry as I show them that poems paint specific pictures by using strong verbs and clear images. Thus, I try to select a poem that the students can act out with me and as we say the words and perform the actions, the poetry becomes a part of them. For instance, I frequently use the well- known “Fog” by Carl Sandburg:

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

We act out the poem together. Then we talk about the specific picture of fog Sandburg creates. I ask them why Sandburg uses “cat feet” rather than “dog feet”. Depending upon the grade level of the class, I may introduce the term metaphor, and we talk about Sandburg’s using the cat’s movements as a metaphor for the fog’s movements. The children love this acting out, and they never tire of doing the same poems over and over. In fact, after performing “Fog” a few times, the students can say the words alone, and they don’t forget them. “Fog” becomes a part of their personal poetry repertoire. (If you wish more help with the acting out of poems, consult Allan Wolf’s books listed on the Bibliography.)

After reading and acting out poems, I introduce some plan for writing a poem, and we write together and/or separately. I emphasize and re-emphasize creating a specific picture, using strong verbs, and employing all the senses. I am going to give a sketch of a few of the approaches I have used in working with grades 1-8, and you can adapt these to your own situations, adding or deleting as you choose. Remember to use your own expertise and your own personality as you seek to excite the children with your enthusiasm for poetry.

Lesson 1: Bubbles ( All thanks for this idea goes to Ellen Johnston-Hale who first

used it in my classroom years ago. It still works with all ages.)

I may start the class by quoting Carl Sandburg’s poem, Bubbles :

Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves.

They flickered out saying:

“It was worth being a bubble just to have held that

rainbow thirty seconds.”

Then I proceed to blow bubbles until they float all around the classroom. I ask the students to watch the bubbles carefully. Of course they can see how two may merge into one, how some pop immediately, how one lone bubble may drift up next to the ceiling and outlast all others.

Next, I ask them to give me some good strong verbs that show what the bubbles are doing. We make a long list together, and the students keep adding to this.

I ask them what the bubbles remind them of, and again we compile a list.

I ask questions using each of the senses and create a list of their answers: What do the bubbles sound like, taste like, feel like, smell like, look like?

When we have completed our lists, we write poems. If the students are not familiar with poetry, we talk about how a poem is written on the page, and we examine some examples together before we actually begin our writing.

Often, especially with younger children, we write our first poem as a group poem. Sometimes students will go ahead and write a poem on their own after we finish our group poem. If the students are at ease with poetry, they may want to just write their own poems immediately.

After writing time I always ask, “Who wants to share your poem?” In an elementary classroom hands shoot up, so many times more hands wave in the air than the time on the clock allows for reading.

(See next page for a “Bubble” poem students have written.)

Dancing Bubbles

A round balloon

Floating in the sky,

Sparkling in the air,

Glistening like the sun,

Swooshing everywhere,

Drifting like a bird,

Floating like a boat at sea,

Climbing like an astronaut in space,

Taking off like a dirt bike

Soaring off the ramp,

Blasting

Gliding

Zooming

A big round rainbow

A multicolored sphere

A parachute falling

A hot air balloon,

Swoosh!

So pretty in the air,

Exploding

Like a huge volcano

With a soft

POP!

Group Poem

Fourth Grade Class of Mrs. Monica Williams

Cool Spring Elementary School

October 28, 2002

Lesson 2 : I Can Picture Poems (Again I thank Ellen Johnston Hale for many of the

specifics in this plan.)

From day one we talk about how poems create word pictures. On the first day when I am using this approach to writing poems, I try to act out a poem whose words show us a clear picture. The little children love “The Little Turtle” by Vachel Lindsay, page 28 in Allan Wolf’s It’s Show Time and/or My Dog by Marchette Chute, page 29 in the same book.

I tell the children that we are using a video camera to zero in on the turtle, and we must take an exact picture of that one action or moment. In the Little Turtle we see the turtle “swimming in the puddle and climbing on the rocks.”

When it is writing time, I tell the students they may focus on a person, object, or a pet. Taking a picture of a pet is a favorite because so many children have pets they love. I encourage them to zero in on a specific moment or a specific action of that person, object or pet and make me see it. I remind them that they also need to use all of their senses to do this well. I need to hear, smell, feel, and possibly even taste to “see” this pet, object, or person clearly.

Before we begin writing, I read aloud some examples of “I Can Picture” poems that my former students have written. This helps to jumpstart student poetry writers better than any other method I have discovered. (See student poem at bottom of page.)

Some students have a poem completed before I finish reading the models. At the end of writing time, we again share.

An “I Can Picture” Poem

I can picture us, you and me,

Sitting on the pier,

Just watching the pond water glimmer

In the mid-afternoon sun.

I look you in your big brown eyes,

And you lick my face,

From my chin to my red hair.

Then I wipe off my slobber covered face,

With my dog hair covered shirt.

I look you in your big brown eyes again,

But you know by now ,

I don’t want to be licked again.

We stand up and walk the long walk,

Back up the hill to the house.

Taylor Loftis , Grade 7

Lesson 3: The Use of Extended Metaphor

From the beginning I work with the students on becoming familiar with the names of the poetic devices such as simile, metaphor, and personification by naming them as we find them in poems we are reading for fun. However, I find that the students do some of their best writing when we work with the extended metaphor.

You might begin this lesson by just helping the students grasp what a metaphor is. You might ask how they would tell someone what the sun is just by completing the phrase , The sun is …… Write some of their word pictures on the board and repeat them. Tell them that they have just created metaphors for the sun, for a metaphor is showing how one thing is like another by saying it IS the other thing. Then read and/or give the students copies and have individuals read different stanzas of An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie by Vachel Lindsay aloud:

In the Beginning

The sun is a huntress young,

The sun is a red, red joy,

The sun is an Indian girl,

Of the tribe of the Illinois

Mid-Morning

The sun is a smoldering fire,

That creeps through the high gray plain,

And leaves not a bush of cloud

To blossom with flowers of rain.

Noon

The sun is a wounded deer,

That treads pale grass in the skies,

Shaking his golden horns,

Flashing his baleful eyes.

Sunset

The sun is an eagle old,

There in the windless west,

Atop of the spirit-cliffs

He builds him a crimson nest.

Discuss the different metaphors for the sun used in each stanza of Lindsay’s poem and then have the students write their own metaphor poem of the sun.

You might want to wait until your next lesson to continue your study of metaphor and then go on to the extended metaphor, using some of the following suggestions:

If we have learned “Fog” earlier, we go back and remember how the cat’s movement is a metaphor for the fog’s movement. Then I read them “The Toaster” by William Jay Smith:

A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red

Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.

I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one,

He hands them back when he sees they are done.

I first read this poem without telling the students the title and have them guess the title and tell what led them to this conclusion. Then we discuss the way the metaphor “the silver-scaled dragon” fits the toaster. I ask what this poem shows them that the sentence, “The toaster toasts my bread” does not show them. If they have difficulty with this question, I ask, “Which makes a better picture in your mind, the poem about the toaster or my sentence about the toaster?” Of course I then ask, “Why?”, hoping to lead them to the conclusion that the poem shows the toaster while the sentence simply makes a statement or tells about the toaster. This poem is also a good place to point out personification, the toaster “sits at my elbow” and “He hands them back…”

You can find some other good examples of poems using extended metaphors which you can read and discuss in NCPS Award Winning Poems 2002: The Wind , P. 61 and in Pinesong Awards 2003: Friends, P. 61 and My Mind, P. 62. You may have some better examples of your own you want to use. Just read and discuss them. Then the students will be ready to write. You will be amazed at some of the results.

The Wind

The wind is a comb

Brushing the tops of trees,

Combing them

To the perfect side

And place.

Blowing the leaves all around,

Almost like getting stuck

In the point of the bristles,

Following whichever way

The comb moves.

Canaan Taylor

Grade 5

Cool Spring Elementary School

Other Brief Suggestions:

1. Alliteration : As you discuss the sounds of poetry, you can introduce alliteration, Children love creating tongue twisters. With younger children you can share part of Animalia by Graeme Bass. Then you might have them create a group poem with each child contributing a line containing the name of an animal, a kind of food or whatever you choose beginning with the same sound to illustrate alliteration. The possibilities are limitless. Choose your direction and take off.

2. Colors: You can write all kinds of poems centered around colors. You might first

read aloud Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days and go from there. Even first

graders can come up with different colors for different days. You might say that

each line has to have a different color in it. Let the children use their imagination

to take this wherever they will, but be there to make suggestions and offer

guidance if they get stuck.

For a different approach on using colors in poetry, you

might look at Carl Sandburg’s Bluebird, What Do You Feed On? which is given

under the heading Apostrophe. You might read the poem aloud and ask,

“What are the different kinds of blue in this poem? Why is each one used? Can

you write a poem using some different descriptions of the same color?” Try it.

3. Apostrophe: Explain this poetic term. With younger children you might start by

singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with them. Ask who they are talking to in this poem/song. Then ask if the star can talk back or answer them. Of course they will say, “No.” This is an apostrophe. This simply means that someone writes a poem in which he/she talks to someone or something who can’t answer back. You might read William Blake’s The Lamb to older students and discuss this with them:

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

Gave thee life and bid thee feed,

By the stream and o’er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing, wooly, bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

( Stanza 1 of The Lamb by William Blake)

You might share Carl Sandburg’s Bluebird, What Do You Feed On? with the students and then discuss the use of apostrophe in this poem:

Bluebird, what do you feed on?

It is true you gobble up worms, you

swallow bugs,

And your bill picks up corn, seed,

berries.

This is only part of the answer.

Your feathers have captured a piece of

smooth sky.

Your wings are burnished with

lake-morning blue.

It is not a worm blue nor a bug

blue nor the blue