Self Portrait Poetry

Anthologies

A Fourth Grade UnitIntegrating

Literacy and the Arts-Miriam Morrison, Maureen Devlin-Wayland Public Schools - 2010

Unit Design Template Title: Creating a Self-Portrait Poetry Anthology Subject: English/Language Arts and Social Competency Grade: 4 Unit of Study: Poetry Theme: Finding yourself in Poetry/LiteratureTimeframe: First 6 weeks of schoolEssential Question(s): How do you find yourself in poem (or any text)? Unit Question(s) (optional): What is a poem? How do you read a poem? How do you comprehend a poem? How do you copy a poem? How do you share a poem? How do poets find ideas? How do poets write poems?

Background Information: Georgia Heard presented a two day poetry institute for the teachers in our district this summer. We were inspired to do more poetry in our classrooms. The self portrait anthology will be a productive way to build relationships with the children in our class, help foster a healthy classroom community, and introduce the important genre of poetry. We have 24 students in our classroom, including many children with special needs. We each have a teaching assistant in our classroom full time, and we receive daily support from a special educator. Prior to the unit teaching, teachers will create their own self-portrait poetry anthology. This anthology will reflect the teacher as her “10-year old self.” The teacher will utilize her chosen poems as the mentor texts for the unit.

Learning Goals: Students will discover what is a poem? Students will learn how to read a poemStudents will learn how to comprehend a poem? Students will learn how to copy

poem? How do you share a poem? How do poets find ideas? How do poets write poems?

Learning Standards: Curriculum Topics:Literacy Frameworks: • Standard 14: Poetry Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the

themes, structure, and elements of poetry and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding

• Standard 15: Style and Language Students will identify and analyze how an author’s words appeal to the senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone, and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

• Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks: 7.9 Read grade appropriate imaginative/literary and informational/expository text with comprehension

• 7.10 Read aloud grade appropriate imaginative/literary and informational/expository text fluently, accurately and with comprehension, using appropriate timing, change in voice, and expression.

Aspirations Belonging: Feeling like you are an important part of a group, while knowing

you are special for who you are. Sense of Accomplishment: Being recognized for many different

types of success, including hard work and being a good person.

Fun and Excitement: Enjoying what you are doing--whether at work, school, or play.

Leadership and Responsibility: Making your own decisions and accepting responsibility for those choices.

Confidence to Take Action: Setting goals and taking the steps you need to reach them.

Habits of Mind:Develop Craft: learning to use tools and materials. Learning the practices of an art form.Engage and Persist: Learning to take up subjects of personal interest and importance

within the art world. Learning to develop focus and other ways of thinking helpful to working and persevering at art tasks.

Envision: Learning to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed, heard or written and to imagine possible next steps in making a piece.

Express: Learning to create works that convey an idea, feeling or personal meaning.Observe: Learning to attend to visual, audible, and written contexts more closely than

ordinary “looking” requires; learning to notice things that otherwise might not be might not be noticed.

Reflect: Learning to think and talk with others about one’s work and the process of making it. Learning to judge one’s own and others’ work and processes in relation to the standards of the field.

Stretch and Explore: Learning to reach beyond one’s supposed limitations, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes and accidents.

Performance Task – Culminating TaskStudents share a poem of their choice from their Self-Portrait Anthology through one

or more of the arts: dance, music, drama, or one of the visual arts. Instructional Strategies/Procedures Each Lesson uses following structure:Focus lesson : teacher modeling, mentor text, guided practiceIndependent work: Sometimes this is done in pairs or groupsGroup share: For purposes of closure, celebrating student work and reinforcing key

concepts:Specific Lessons:

1. Finding yourself in a poem2. Copying a poem3. How to read a poem4. Understanding a poem5. How to share a poem through an art medium

Rubric

Vocabulary: poem, poetry, metaphor, simile, image, rhythm, rhyme, stanza, line break, repetition, pattern, music, sensory image, imagery, title, autho,r white space, shape, reflection, visualization, alliteration, the arts, multi-media composition

Materials:• Published works of poetry to serve as mentor texts. • Notebook for each student.• Sticky notes.• Drama materials: masks, costumes, pieces of fabric, scarves.• Visual Arts Materials: paper, cardboard, markers, paints, magazines for cut-

outs, colored paper, recycled materials.• Technology/Music/Dance: iPods, computers, space for practice, headphones• Document camera, chart paper/• Easels• Materials for book (included in slide show)

Differentiated Learning Considerations: preassesment, center choices: music, dance, visual arts, technology, drama

opportunity to word process poems. presentation choice Multiple Intelligences: • language: rhythm, rhyme, reading book collection, song, music, word wall, book collection • kinesthetic: dance, drama, song• visual: visual arts, charts, writer’ books, art materials, word wall, technology including

Youtube, slide shows and Garage Band, collection of “inspirational” objects, personalized (images, words) poetry/song book covers

Accommodations: texts with a range of readability levels, formats and print size. texts with a range of topics, interest areas. availability of technology inclusion of therapists and special educators for instructional suppor tvariety of learning spaces available in the classroom: desks, tables, “private offices,” floor space, computers, use of iPods or voice thread scribes

Unit Author Names: Miram Morrison, Maureen Devlin School:Happy Hollow, Wayland, MA Date:September-October, 2010

© Copyright 2010

Project Outline

• What is Poetry?• Poetry, Parts of Speech and

Writer’s Craft• Finding Yourself in Poetry• Creating Self-Portrait Poetry

Anthologies• Poetry Performances

Poetry, Parts of Speech and Writer’s Craft

• Poets Choose the Best Words: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs

• Poets craft poems: simile, metaphor, alliteration, rhyming patterns,

• Poets have a “license” to write in ways different than the typical writer: upside down, shapes, made-up words,

Examples of Activities Related to Parts of Speech and Writer’s Craft

Dream CatchersAuthor unknown

An ancient Chippewa traditionThe dream net has been madeFor many generationsWhere spirit dreams have played. Hung above the cradle board,Or in the lodge up high,The dream net catches bad dreams,While good dreams slip on by. Bad dreams become entangledAmong the sinew thread.Good dreams slip through the center hole,While you dream upon your bed. This is an ancient legend, Since dreams will never cease,Hang this dream net above your bed, Dream on, and be at peace.

Homework Assignment: Complete the poem analysis..“Dream Catchers” is a poem that has ____ lines and _____ stanzas. The rhyming pattern in the poem is __ __ __ ___. Somerhyming word pairs in the poem are ____ + ____, ____ + _____ and ____ + _____.Use a dictionary or thesaurus (online or offlineto find synonyms for the following words. Remember that a synonym is a word that has the same meaning.lodge_________________catches ________________entangled _____________cease ________________Bonus: What is sinew? (try Googing it)_________________________________________________________

Finding Yourself In Poetry

• Classroom Poetry Collections• Teacher Modeling• NING Discussion• Poetry Books(note each of these can be a page with

examples and/or photos)

Classroom Poetry Collections

Teacher Modeling• Teacher shares his/her self-portrait poetry

anthology.• Teacher thinks aloud as he/she reflects on a

poem and completes a poetry task.• Teacher provides many models of creative

projects and continues to “think aloud” as he/she “plans” the presentation.

Teacher Reflection: The poem, “Frog,” speaks to me because it reminds me of a walk I took at Garden in the Woods. Worth's words, “When he leaps like a stone/Thrown into the pond,” remind me of what happened. I didn't see any frogs at all, and then I saw a frog leaping. I noticed “Water rings spread/After him” as Worth writes and when I looked closer I noticed that the frog was green “With a luster (shine)/Of water on his skin,” just as Valerie Worth describes.

Frog by Valerie WorthThe spotted frogSits quite stillOn a wet stone;He is greenWith a lusterOf water on his skin; His back is mossyWith spots, and greenLike moss on a stone;His gold-circled eyesStare hardLike bright metal rings,When he leapsHe is like a stoneThrown into the pond;Water rings spreadAfter him, bright circlesOf green, circles of gold.

Mark the poem in the following ways using pencil.Underline the verbs.Circle the adjectives.Place an * next to the similes.Draw a rectangle around the nouns.Draw a triangle around the adverbs.Write a + on top of words that have alliteration. Note that a simile is a comparison of two unlike objects or ideas using the words “like” or “as.” For example in the sentence, The pillow was like a cloud,

the author uses a simile to compare a pillow to a cloud – that's a simile.

How do you “find yourself” in a poem?Student/Teacher Social Network Comments

Comment by Henry “First I think of fun things I like to do or see or I enjoy doing. Then I search for those things in the title of the poem. So far that has worked for me because I have some funny and interesting poems that have to do with me.

Comment by Daniel on October 6, 2010 at 7:28am “I try to find funny poems that either make me laugh or makes other people laugh.”

Comment by Jack on October 4, 2010 at 4:58pm “I read the titles to find funny words or words about nature.”

Comment by A LaClaire on October 4, 2010 at 7:12am “ Choose a book and keep reading until you find a poem that your interested in or you could find a poem in the table of contents if the book has one. Then read the poem.” Comment by

Comment by Anika on October 1, 2010 at 8:17pm “I just open to a random page and start reading eventually I find one I like. “

Poetry Books

POETRY PERFORMANCES

Poetry Projects Performance Planning Sheet – Project Due 10/15Name _________________________ # ____Title of Poem Chosen for Presentation: _______________________________Author: __________________________1. Check-off the type(s) of project you intend to do:multi-media (technology):Google presentation ____KidPix Slide Show ____Animoto Film _____Google doc ____Photo Booth___Other? ______visual arts ____musical – song ___musical _____instrumental ____acting ___dance ____2. Check off how and when do you plan to memorize your poem or do you plan to tape it?Memorize with a friend ____Memorize by yourself ____Tape it using Google docs ____Tape it using Photo Booth ____Tape it using KidPix ____Tape it using a tape recorder or iPod ____Memorize at home ___Memorize at school ____Tape it at school ___Tape it at home _____3. Plan your visual projectMake a list of the supplies you will need on the back.Draw a picture of how your final project on the back of the page.

4. Get started working on your project which is due 10/15. Write any additional steps that you'll have to do below.5. Write the explanation of how you planned, created, practiced and completed the project. Practice reading this explanation at home and in

school. Be prepared to read it to the class. I chose to do a ________________________ creative project because ____________________________________. I planned the project by ______________,________________, and ______________________. I practiced the presentation by____________________________ and ______________________________.

6. List any questions you have for a teacher or parent as you work on the project. Ask the questions to the adult when you have the chance.

Poetry ProjectsPoetry Creative Projects MenuEvery project must include the following:• Taped or oral recitation of poem including title and author name.• Explanation of how the poem “speaks to you” or “reflects” you.• Explanation of how you created, planned for, and practiced your performance.• A performance that includes one or more of the arts below.

1. Visual Arts Presentation: painting, drawing, poster, sculpture, or other visual arts presentation.2. Dance Performance: dance that matches the poem wearing a costume that helps to portray the poem too.3. Acting Performance: acting out the poem with actions and a costume .4. Musical Performance: song or instrumental performance that matches the poem.5. Multi-Media Composition*: multi-media presentation of the poem using technology. *There are many venues available for the technology presentation including the following:• Animoto• Google Docs• Power Point• GarageBand• iMovie• VoiceThread• KidPix

Example of Visual Arts Performance of Poetry

Exemplars of Poetry PerformanceMusic, Acting, Speaking, Video

• Video Poetry (animoto)• Games

– http://techadvantagewayland.ning.com/video/alliteration-game

• Songs – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaIpdMZN3E0&feature=player_embedded– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47LROIv_Vto&feature=player_embedded

• Examples of Poetry Recitations– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0KsM_g0Jw4&feature=player_embedded– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucM0NhUUHEM&feature=player_embedded– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAb_ibzgTjY&feature=player_embedded– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxDsJ4Cre2A&feature=player_embedded

• Arthur Video: I’m a Poet 1 & 2– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZA4jyVXi7o&feature=player_embedded– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jllw_m2tjX0&feature=player_embedded

Student ExamplesPoetry Performances

• Henry’s Animoto Poetry Film: http://techadvantagewayland.ning.com/video/doughnuts-by-unknown-film

Poetry Animationhttp://scratch.mit.edu/projects/teamfifteen/1352607

Poetry Posters

Poetry Podcastshttp://teacherweb.com/MA/HappyHollowElementary/MsDevlin/Anikas-Project.m4a

KidPix Slideshows

Poetry Performances

Poetry Recitation

Poetry Illustration

Assessment- Creative Project Grade SheetNote: A “grading sheet” can sometimes serve as a better performance assessment and planner than a rubric for grade four

students.

Creative Project Grade SheetName: _____________________________________________________________ #________Creative Project Type:Technology: ______________________________________________Visual: ____________________________________________________Musical: __________________________________________________Drama: ___________________________________________________Dance: ____________________________________________________

The creative project illustrated the poem in a thoughtful way (30 points)The poem was recited accurately: (30 points)

stopping at each line breakpausing between stanzasusing expression that matches the poemclearly spokenloud enough for everyone to hearAn explanation was presented explaining how the poem chosen “speaks to the student.” (10 points)The overall presentation demonstrates planning, practice and a positive attitude. (30 points)

Score/CommentsCreative Project _______Recitation ________Explanation _________Overall Presentation __________Total Score: ___________

Student Reflections