Poetry Analysis: Finishing Up Poems for Two Voices

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Objective

SWBAT analyze a poem from the book "Joyful Noise: A Poem for Two Voices" as far as structure and word choice are concerned.

Big Idea

Demonstrating understanding through writing is a necessary life skill.

Lesson Author

Jody Barnes

Columbus, OH

Grade Level

Third grade

Fourth grade

Fifth grade

Subjects

English / Language Arts

poetic technique

Poetry

poetic style

Standards

RL.4.1

Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

RL.4.5

Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, setting descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.

RL.4.10

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Big News!

10 minutes

After yesterday's big performances, the students come in today not knowing quite what to expect. I tell them that today's lesson is the culmination of all of our lessons on the book Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices. Today, students are going to get to analyze a poem for word choice and structure all by themselves. (There was not the cheering that I thought there might be for this!! But, oh well!!)

I show the students the document they will use to analyze any poem from the book they choose. I have a student hand out the books while I settle in at the ELMO and turn to "Whirligig Beetles".

Modeling and Analyzing

40 minutes

Reflection: Differentiation

Once all the students have their books open to "Whirligig Beetles", I read the document questions and we work through them together. This poem will not be one they can choose from when completing their own analysis, but I wanted to model some thinking with the students and remind them of all the lessons we've learned. This takes a while, but when we're done, I'm pretty sure they get it.

I hand out their documents and instruct them to choose any poem they wish and complete the analysis. I give students the entire time to work.

Tell Me What You Think

15 minutes

Near the end of class, I gather the students back together as a group and collect the papers. I ask them for a "Glow and a Grow" for this unit. I want to know what they liked and didn't like. In our discussion, I heard a lot of things that I can file away for next year. Most kiddos liked the poetry reading and did NOT like the final summative assessment that we did in this lesson. (Why am I not surprised!!)

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