Poetry Break - A serious poem about a sensitive subject in teens’ lives

Introduction: Road Rage – who hasn’t felt it? Young adults can be especially susceptible to it – they just went through drivers ed and they now know how to drive (unlike some of the other idiots on the road!)

Three Way Stop
By Janet S. Wong

The old lady got there first,
and you got there second,
but here he comes, that jerk in his truck, trying to push his way through—
So you charge to block him off,
you charge, by golly, to stick up for what is right—

and you crash,
ding his tail,
smash your light.

(From BEHIND THE WHEEL: POEMS ABOUT DRIVING by Janet S. Wong. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1999)

Extension: Teenagers don’t have the life experience yet to cope with road rage. In a driver’s education class, this would be a perfect poem to introduce a discussion of this dangerous aspect of driving and the responsibility to other drivers.

Graphic from: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Behind-The-Wheel/Janet-S-Wong/e/9780689825316/?itm=1 Accessed 4/24/2009

Poetry Break - Poetry with a refrain

map of the Erie Canal

Introduction: When my children were very young, their book-of-the-month club sent us a copy of The Erie Canal (Illustrated by Peter Spier. North Country Books 1999.). Unfortunately out of print now, this wonderful poem picture book has memorable water-color illustrations that portray life and activity on the Erie Canal in the 1800's. The last page is the poem with the musical accompaniment. The book is buried in a box in my garage somewhere to save for my grandchildren someday, but it was one of my children’s favorite bedtime books. I was able to find the poem in a more recent book also. This poem/song is unusual in that it has a refrain within the verses along with a separate refrain.

The Erie Canal
Author unknown

I’ve got a mule, her name is Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
She’s a good ol’ worker and a good ol’ pal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
We’ve hauled some barges in our day
Fill’d with lumber, coal, and hay,
And we know every inch of the way
from Albany to Buffalo.

(Refrain)
Low bridge, everybody down!
Low bridge, for we’re comin’ to a town.
And you’ll always know your neighbor,
You’ll always know your pal,
If you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

We better get along on our way, ol’ gal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
‘Cause you bet your life I’d never part with Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
Git up there, mule, here comes a lock,
We’ll make Rome ‘bout six o’clock,
One more trip an’ back we’ll go,
Right back home to Buffalo.

(Refrain)
Low bridge, everybody down!
Low bridge, for we’re comin’ to a town.
And you’ll always know your neighbor,
You’ll always know your pal,
If you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

(From APPLE FOR THE TEACHER: THIRTY SONGS FOR SINGING WHILE YOU WORK collected and introduced by Jane Yolen. Harry N Abram, Inc., Publisher 2005)

Extension
History: The Erie Canal played a major role in the settlement of the Northern United States in the early 1800’s. It established a waterway between Lake Erie and the Hudson River, opening the area up to increased settlement and transportation of goods. When studying US history, teach the students this song and show them maps of how this area was opened to expansion by this milestone in American ingenuity.
Geography: The 5 themes of geography are depicted very well in a study of the Erie Canal. Location and place include making Lake Erie and the Hudson River accessible to each other. Movement and area are shown by the way the Erie Canal opened this region up for settlement and commerce. Human-environment interaction is illustrated by the way the Canal was dug and constructed through the mountains.

graphic from: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx?refid=701512334 Accessed 4/10/2009.

Poetry Break: Signs of Spring

Introduction: My daughter loves daffodils. Instead of robins, she looks for these brightly colored flowers to tell her when spring arrives.

Sometime Spring
by Douglas Florian

Sometimes sun
And sometimes rain--
Spring is just one big daisy chain.

Sometimes warm
And sometimes chilly--
Spring is silly daffodilly.

(from HANDSPRINGS written and illustrated by Douglas Florian. Harper Collins Publishers 2006)

Extension:
1. Provide your class with drawing materials and have them illustrate this poem with their signs of spring.
2. Compare this poem to William Wordsworth's (1770-1850) "Daffodils."
3. Take your class out to a nearby field and make daisy or clover chains to celebrate spring!

graphic from: http://vkelim.smugmug.com/gallery/261105_roTWX/1/10283057_8QVve#10283057_8QVve-L-LB Accessed 3/27/2009

Poetry Break: Biographical Poem

Introduction: When I was in grade school in New Jersey, our class took a field trip to a Civil War era house that had been a station for the Underground Railroad. I still remember looking down into that small hole in amazement and wondering what kind of life a person would be escaping from to be willing to hide in such a tiny, dank hole in the ground. When slaves were ready to escape, they’d hang a quilt outside their slave quarters, and that night, as the other slaves heard a whippoorwill call from the fields beyond, they would silently bid farewell to the soon-to-be ex-slave escaping with Harriet Tubman. Harriet and her followers would follow the North Star, which was part of the Big Dipper constellation – slaves referred to this as the Drinking Gourd.

That same history unit, I learned more about Harriet Tubman and her amazing life. Her part of the Underground Railroad was the path from Maryland to Philadelphia. Harriet was never caught and neither were any of the slaves she led to freedom, despite frequent episodes of narcolepsy caused by a beating inflicted during her slavery childhood. That same beating created a large indentation in the side of her head, so she always covered it with a head scarf.

The Whippoorwill Calls
By Beverly McLoughland

No one hears her
Coming
Through the woods
At night
For she is like
A whippoorwill
Moving through the trees
On silent wings.

No one sees her
Hiding
In the woods
By day
For she is like
A whippoorwill
Blending into leaves
On the forest floor.

And one night
The whippoorwill calls
And the warm air
Carries the haunting sound
Across the fields
And into the small dark cabins.

And only the slaves know
It is Harriet.

(From LIVES: POEMS ABOUT FAMOUS AMERICANS selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Harper Collins Publishers 1999)

Extension:
1. Integrate social studies and math by having your students look up the average walking pace of a human, then. Look up the map of Harriet’s route and calculate how many miles it is, then estimate how many days it would take to walk from Maryland to Philadelphia along that path.
2. Integrate social studies and art by showing students various websites and images of Underground Railroad quilts. Provide drawing materials and graph paper for students to design their own quilt blocks. Or you can use the interactive website, " Make Your Own Secret Quilt Message."
3. Performance and Poetry – Have your students act out this poem. There are also other poems about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad that lend themselves well to performance, such as “Harriet Tubman” by Eloise Greenfield and the folksong, “Follow the Drinking Gourd.”

graphic from: www.stmarksbridgeport.org/newsletter2.html Accessed 3/25/2009

Poetry Break Review - Poetry that does not rhyme

Introduction: One of the very first things I did when I moved to San Antonio was visit the Alamo. You walk through a greenery covered breezeway to enter the grounds. As soon as you enter the gardens behind the Mission itself, it's as if all sound is cut off - this is hallowed ground. This silence can be felt in the daytime as well as the nighttime. Do the tourists feel the reverence, or are they too busy being tourists?

Alamo Plaza at Night
by Carol Coffee Reposa

Even now, tourists come
To gaze up at the chipped facade,
Weathered double doors
Oaks twisting into dark, floodlights
Trained along their branches.
Cameras flash agaist white limestone
Pocked with centuries
And gunshots long ago.

Within the walls
And Roman arches
Heavy with their bars
Are tidy gardens:
Boston fern droops langidly
Toward fresh-cut grass
and copper plants.
Goldfish wallow in their quiet ponds.

Outside people talk about the mission,
Where to go, what to eat.
Visitors brood over maps
And time-lapse shots, children peering
At old plaques, words lost
Within a diesel's whine, the clop-clop
Of a horse's hooves, wind rising
In dark trees, voices gathered
Finally
Into the stones.

(From A STUDENTS’ TREASURY OF TEXAS POETRY by Billy Bob Hill, Editor. TCU Press 2002)

Extension:
1. Read this poem as an introduction to the Texas Revolution in a Texas History class.
2. If you have the misfortune to not live in Texas, this poem could be read as an introduction to the Texan Revolution in an American history class.
3. Every culture has its special places – the Alamo, Arlington Cemetery, Osaka castle, and Tiananmen Square; just to name a few. In a high school world history class, read this poem, then lead a class discussion on why cultures need those special places.

Graphic from: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1573869.jpg accessed 3/6/2009

Poetry Break - poetry in an unusual form: Acrostic

Introduction: Middle School can be a pretty intimidating place, and it's hard to judge who to make friends with. Students this age tend to form cliques fast and ostracize those who don't fit into those cliques. But are they really snobs or are they just shy?

SNOB
by Kristine O'Connell George

       Scanning the crowd,
       Noticing
       Only the other
    snoBs

       Staring right through me
       Never thinking
     abOut
    anyBody else.


       Stuck up
       Narrow
       Obnoxious
       Boring

       Someone
       No one
       Ought to
       Bother knowing.

(From SWIMMING UPSTREAM: MIDDLE SCHOOL POEMS by Kristine O'Connell George. Clarion Books 2002)

Extension:
Starting middle school puts most students on their guard. During the first week of school, language arts teachers can read this poem to their middle school classes and then hold an icebreaker designed to let students meet other students they didn’t know before. For example, stand in a circle in the classroom and go around the circle, having each person tell what were the first words they read this morning, whether it was a side of a cereal box, a billboard seen from the school bus window, or the math assignment they didn’t get done last night. Once the students seem all comfortable with each other, discuss how people shouldn’t make snap judgments on people by their external appearance, but instead on what they truly know about that person. Be sure to mention that what looks like a student not bothering to see another student might not be snobbishness, but actually shyness. That other student is probably just as wary of middle school as any other student.

Graphic from: http://albanyhighcougar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/crowdedstairs1.jpg accessed 3/6/2009

Poetry Break: NCTE Award Winning Poet Karla Kuskin

Introduction: Children and music are naturals together. Since poetry has its own rhythm just like music, why not combine the two?

Lewis Has a Trumpet
By Karla Kuskin

A trumpet
A trumpet
Lewis has a trumpet
A bright one that’s yellow
A loud proud horn.
He blows it in the evening
When the moon is newly rising
He blows it when it’s raining
In the cold and misty morn
It honks and it whistles
It roars like a lion
It rumbles like a lion
With a wheeze huffing hum
His parents say it’s awful
Oh really simply awful
But
Lewis says he loves it
It’s such a handsome trumpet
And when he’s through with trumpets
He’s going to buy a drum.

(From A JAR OF TINY STARS edited by Bernice E Cullinan. Boyds Mill Press 1999)

Extension:
Every class has a poem that’s appropriate for that subject, and this is true for music class, too. When elementary school students are introduced to musical instruments, sometimes they are hesitant because they’re afraid of making the wrong kind of sound. Reading this poem out loud at the beginning of a music class can help the students to realize that music isn’t made to be played with caution; it’s made to be played with joy. If a student can’t play an instrument with skill, encourage that student to play with enthusiasm, just like Lewis. And if the students give it a try and decide that instrument’s not right for them, point out that they can always pick another instrument. After all, that’s what Lewis did!

Graphic from:
http://www.sachika.info/raw%20pics/pic%20left/trumpet-boy.jpg accessed 2/20/2009

Poetry Break: Douglas Florian

Introduction: Children love choral reading, especially when it’s silly. This poem just begs to be shared out loud during a storytime.

Hello, My Name is Dracula
By Douglas Florian

Hello, my name is Dracula.
My clothing is all blackula.
I drive a Cadillacula.
I am a maniacula.
I drink blood for a snackula.
Your neck I will attackula
With teeth sharp as a tackula.
At dawn I hit the sackula.
Tomorrow I’ll be backula!

(From LAUGH-ETERIA written and illustrated by Douglas Florian. Harcourt Brace & Company 1999)

Extension:
1. A preschool storytime is the perfect setting for this poem, especially around Halloween. Read the poem out loud one time in a spooky voice, allowing the children to join in if they want. Then read the poem again, this time pausing before the last 3 syllables of each line (ack-u-la). By the time you reach the end of the poem, every child will most likely be shouting out the syllables in unison, accompanied by frequent giggle attacks.
2. Children in grades 1-4 will enjoy this poem also. After the teacher reads the poem out loud once, let the students who want to, take turns reading the lines to the rest of their class. Let them pause to allow the other students to join in. Discuss how Florian makes his own nonsense rhymes for this poem, and have the class come up with lists of silly nonsense rhymes – the sillier, the better! If the class is interested in writing their own silly poems, these lists can either be laminated and posted in the classroom or handed out as individual copies for the students to use in their writing portfolios.

Graphic from : http://www.edupics.com/en-coloring-pictures-pages-photo-dracula-p8579.jpg

Poetry Break: African American poet Langston Hughes

Introduction: According to the editors, Langston Hughes wrote this poem for a class assignment at City College of the City University of New York.

Theme for English B
By Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down , and write this page:

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
Hear you, hear me—we two—you, me talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.)—Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be I love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
Although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

(From POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE: LANGSTON HUGHES edited by David Roessel & Arnold Rampersad, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2006)

Extension:
1) How many English teachers have never had students groan about writing an essay? Even poets sometimes question that assignment, just as in this poem. Have your students write a one page essay about themselves without talking about themselves directly. They can put it into free verse or prose, but the point is to flex their creative writing muscles.
2) Langston Hughes' birthday is February 1st. What a great way to kick off Black History Month! Stock your classroom with as many Langston Hughes collections as you can find. Give each student 20 minutes to find a poem to share, and then spend the rest of the class time reading the poems out loud.

A Library Poetry Break

Introduction - This poem would be perfect for the first visit to the school library after school begins in the fall, or at a public library in a children’s presentation about how to find things in the library.

The Library
By Barbara A. Huff

It looks like any building
When you pass it on the street,
Made of stone and glass and marble,
Made of iron and concrete.

But once inside you can ride
A camel or a train,
Visit Rome, Siam, or Nome,
Feel a hurricane,
Meet a king, learn to sing,
How to bake a pie,
Go to sea, plant a tree,
Find how airplanes fly,
Train a horse, and of course
Have all the dogs you’d like,
See the moon, a sandy dune,
Or catch a whopping pike.
Everything that books can bring
You’ll find inside those walls.
A world is there for you to share
When adventure calls.

You cannot tell its magic
By the way the building looks,
But there’s wonderment within it,
The wonderment of books.

(from THE RANDOM HOUSE BOOK OF POETRY FOR CHILDREN selected by Jack Prelutsky, Random House, 1983)

Extension
After reading the poem out loud, ask the children to name some of their favorite buildings in their town. Ask, “What do these buildings have in common? What is different about each of these buildings?” Lead the conversation around to your particular library building, and ask the children what their favorite part of the library is. Hand out paper and crayons or colored pencils and allow the children to draw their own library, either outside or inside, or both.

Graphic from Texas State Archives and Library Commission, “Bilingual Children’s Library Signage.” August 28, 2007. http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/bilingualsign/childrens.html (accessed January 28, 2009).