Classroom Activities
Each lesson will be 40 minutes. Refer to the Strategies section for a detailed description of each week, including resources to refer to. Use the writer’s workshop process for lessons: 1) mini-lesson, whole class practice, independent or partnership work/conference, and share out.
Week One
Objective: Student will be able to explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose and refer to the structural elements in order to read and analyze poetry.
Day One – Introduce poetry as a genre. Ask what makes poetry different from prose? Choose poetry to read aloud from Shel Silverstein to engage students. Introduce Heart Maps from Georgia Heard to explain that poets write about things that are close to their hearts, that are important to them. Model your completed heart map Use template on page 25 and have students complete their heart map. Share out and display in class.
Day Two – Introduce imagery. Choose a poem or text from Mentor Texts on page 31 and read aloud to students. Discuss how words help the reader to create mental pictures. Model your writer’s heart map. Using the template on page 28, have students create their writer’s heart map, including things they want to write about in this poetry unit. Share out and display in class.
Day Three – Introduce similes as figurative language. Choose a Shel Silverstein poem to model similes. Identify similes in the poem and create class similes. Model your “Home is where My Heart is” heart map. Using the template on page 68, have students create a “Home is Where My Heart is” heart map. Ask students to write a poem about their heart map. Share out and display.
Day Four – Introduce metaphors as figurative language. Choose another Shel Silverstein poem to model metaphors. Identify metaphors and create class metaphors. Allow students time to finish heart maps and/or share out completed heart map from day three.
Day Five – Introduce the distinction between public and private poetry. Read aloud poems from Jack Prelutsky’s Ride a Purple Pelican. Discuss types of public poetry – protest, politics, opinion, war, history, etc. Cut out examples of public and private poems and have students work in small groups of four to determine which poems are public and private. Create a chart of characteristics of public and private poems. Post in classroom.
Week Two
Objective: Students will be able to compare or contrast an event or topic described from two different points of view in order to write poetry about place.
Day One – Introduce “poetry ideas” from Kenneth Koch. Read “Tyger” on page 3 of Rose, Where Did You Get that Red? and discuss the poetry idea. “Ask students to write a poem in which you are talking to a beautiful and mysterious creature and you can ask it anything you want. Anything.” Allow time for students to write and conference. Share out poems.
Day Two – Introduce Walking Tour of the Neighborhood. Go over directions for “Map of the Town.” Allow students to take a tablet or phone to take pictures. After completing the tour, allow students time to create a poem from their worksheet. Share out. (If time runs short, students will create a poem on day three.)
Day Three – Introduce mind maps to students. On chart paper, one for each group of four, draw a web. The center of each web is “Neighborhood Memories.” Draw four lines from the center. Give each student a post-it note (larger ones) and ask students to silently write down a memory they have of living in their neighborhood (not a memory of living in their homes). Have them place it on the web. Allow students times to read each vignette and silently write comments or questions they have about the vignette on the chart paper stemming from the vignette. Students can respond to questions or comments by drawing lines from the question or comment and adding and responding in writing. This is all completed without talking. Post the charts on the walls and allow students to take a walk around the classroom looking at each other’s stories.
Day Four – Read aloud “Philadelphia” by Rudyard Kipling. Read each paragraph a second time, discussing the historic and fictional figures in the poem. Discuss the poetry idea, which is write about what Philadelphia has been known for but you cannot find it today. Remind students of their stories on the mind maps. These stories, events, and characters can be used for the poem. Model writing a first stanza with the class. Ask students to write two more stanzas of the poem.
Day Five – Ask students to share out their stanzas from day four. Reread the last stanza of the poem “Philadelphia” where Kipling wrote about the lasting qualities of nature in Pennsylvania. Discuss why he would have written about Pennsylvania instead of Philadelphia in the last stanza. Discuss and create a list of things in nature you can still find in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Ask students to write their last paragraph of their poem about Philadelphia. Share out poems. Make comparisons of students’ poems with Kipling’s “Philadelphia.”
Week Three
Objective: Students will be able to compare or contrast an event or topic described from two different points of view in order to write poetry about place.
Day One – Students will be participating in a walking tour of Philadelphia on day two. Discuss with students expectations for behavior and the objectives for the tour. Describe what they will see and what they are expected to do, which is to observe and record what they notice about the places they are visiting. Ask students to write in their poetry notebooks (which they will bring with them) questions about the sites they are visiting. Share out.
Day Two – Walking tour of Historic Philadelphia. Students will bring their notebooks, tablets, and/or phones to record observations and write questions or wonderings. If time, allow students to write a reflection about the tour when they return to class (this could be a homework assignment).
Day Three – Read aloud “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg. Ask students to reread aloud. Discuss the poetry idea: write about what Philadelphia is famous for and how students see the city. Create a T-chart about what Philadelphia is famous for, which should be easy to do after the class trip, and record how students feel about the city. Compare and contrast these items, discussing why perceptions of the city are different from what it is famous for.
Day Four – Preview and show www.movoto.com/guide/philadelphia-pa/philadelphia-stereotypes/, which is a fun way to see how outsiders feel and think about Philadelphians. Choose three or four items and discuss with students. Reread “Chicago” and ask students to discuss how outsiders saw Chicago and how the poet felt about the city. Ask students to write two or three stanzas about how they feel about Philadelphia. Share out.
Day Five – Model the first two stanzas of your poem on Kipling’s “Philadelphia.” Discuss your thoughts about what the city is known for and how you view the city. Ask students to write their last stanza on how they feel to be a Philadelphian. Share out.
Week Four
Objective: Students will be able to engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly in order to write and discuss public poems. Day One – Read aloud “The Great City” by Walt Whitman. Give background of Whitman (where he lived) and ask students what city he might have been writing about. Ask students to reread in partnerships and circle words or phrases that they are unsure of. Discuss these words or phrases as a whole class. Assign portions of the poem to small groups of three or four and ask students to identify a poetry idea. Ask students to share out their ideas. Take all ideas and chart on paper. Whittle poetry ideas down to one or two and ask students to identity where in the poem they can find the poetry ideas recorded on the chart. Discuss. Day Two – Review poetry idea created on day one. Reread “The Great City” and ask students to think about how a poem could be written about Philadelphia using the agreed upon poetry idea. In small groups, ask students to create a T-chart showing what Philadelphia is known for and what it is not known for (example: we are known for our cheesesteaks but are not known for our volunteerism). Share out T-charts. Day Three – Review T-charts from day two. Begin a class poem using Whitman’s idea – what a great city should be known for. Ask students to write a poem about Philadelphia using the class model or creating their own poem. Share out and discuss poems. Day Four – Continue sharing and discussing poems. Inform students that they will be creating a podcast of their poems. Allow students to partner and practice reading their poems. Begin recording once a pair of students is ready. Day Five – Continue recording students. Once everyone has read his or her poems, view podcast. Ask students to write a reflection of their experience writing poetry. Share out by using Google Classroom, which will allow students to share their reflections on the unit and start a dialogue about poetry.
Extension idea – create a poem using Kipling’s poetry idea – instead of what you used to be able to find in Philadelphia versus what you find today, change it to what you find in Philadelphia today and what you hope to find in the future – maybe 50 years from now.
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