Teaching Poetry - Line Reading with Mary Oliver's "Beside the Waterfall"

I find that poetry can be tricky to teach, for me at least.  Poetry was NOT why I got into teaching English.  Short stories?  Yes.  Novels? Yes.  Grammar and MLA?  Yes and yes.  Poetry is a different story.  

I have spent the last thirty years trying to get better at it (well, maybe not as focus on the task as I should have been for some of the years).  This year I am using Foster's How to Teach Poetry like a Professor to give me a bit more insight on how to teach it to my students.  

You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Poetry-Like-Professor/dp/006211378X if you are interested.  

One of the first things he mentions is to read the sentences, not the lines.  He posits that "lines are the enemy of meaning."  I think it is a good first step to get students who struggle with poetry to start parsing out understanding.  He uses "I Could Not Stop for Death" by Dickinson as an example, but I think I found a better one to use for teaching this particular concept - Mary Oliver's "Beside the Waterfall".

You can see it better at the Poetry Foundation page: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=162&issue=5&page=6 or feel free to grab it off the Google Doc I have of that same image: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16NB7d6AmDUSAWFU3XvAgdgKc_tX3aQD9o0x5JBnEJB0/edit?tab=t.0

Why I like it?  Dickinson certainly has her place I do love that particular poem of hers (plus she is great for a common meter lesson).  The students, though, at least the ones struggling with finding meaning, are wary about all those dashes.  This poem by Oliver does not have that.  It is also a bit more modern than Dickinson, which can be easier to approach as well.

The lines here are meant to look like waterfalls (I think so anyway), but they are in no way dividing up meaning.  This is a perfect example for students to ignore line and stanza breaks to read the poem.  There is all sorts of perspective to get into the meat of the meaning (probably poor choice of words) - on the one hand, the dog eating the fawn seems disturbing, but we end with it just being a dog doing what dogs do.  The dog has a flower-like face as well.  

I will be using this poem today and I think that it will be a great shoe horn for my students struggling and will give them a little more confidence before we go into the next lesson about sounds of poetry.

If you have other strategies for students who struggle with poetry, shoot me an email or leave a comment!  If you don't, feel free to just swing into the comments to say hi.

If you are looking for more poetry help, nothing has helped my students (of all levels) grasp poetry better than this archetype lesson.  

Spider-Man Unmasked!

Here is a great creative writing prompt to get kids pushing their thoughts a bit.  You do not need to be a comic book fan to participate (although if you are, there is that much more interest in it).  All you need is the ability to think divergently.

Show students this cover:

Now, supposing that everything shown on the cover is true for the story inside, how could this happen and Peter Parker still keep his identity secret?  We have these characters on the cover:

• Dr. Octopus - his four extra mechanical arms are just as strong as Spider-Man and allows him to reach far away.
• Peter Parker - the true identity of Spider-Man.  He has the strength, speed, and agility of a spider and has a nifty spider-sense that warns him of danger (which didn't help as the cover shows).
• Four random police officers
• Betty Brant - she is a secretary for the newspaper The Daily Bugle and Peter Parker's girlfriend at the time of this comic.
• J. Jonah Jameson - a newspaper editor who hates Spider-Man with a passion.

Let students write out how Peter Parker is able to keep his identity secret even though seven people clearly see him unmasked.  Give prizes to the most creative and the closest to the original.

So what is the real story?

Peter Parker has a cold, so he has lost all his spider powers.  Doc Ock, however, wants revenge on Spider-Man.  He notices that the Daily Bugle seems to get all the press on Spider-Man, so he breaks into their building, tells the editor, J. Jonah Jameson, that he will print a challenge to Spider-Man to meet him at a certain location.  He then kidnaps Jameson's secretary to insure that it gets done.  Peter Parker, fearful for his girlfriend's safety, dons his Spidey suit and goes after Doc Ock, even though he doesn't have his powers anymore.  Doc Ock beats him easily and unmasks him.  When he sees it is a teenager, he exclaims that the real Spider-Man is too scared to fight him and sent this kid in his place.  Figuring that was why Spider-Man's punches were so weak and why he was so easily beaten, Doc Ock throws Peter to the ground and leaves.  Betty and Jameson both think that Peter is quite the hero, albeit rather stupid, and the police, after toying with what to charge Peter with, finally leave them alone.

Gotta Catch Them All (Emily Dickinson Poems, of Course!)

 

As we go toward the end of the year, we may find ourselves with some awkward pacing.  You can't always test on the last day (and that provides some headaches when students are absent and now have to wait until January to be tested on material they have forgotten) and you don't want to start something new just to have a two week interlude.

Here's a lesson that can be in about half a period.  It's fun and it is content relevant.

If I were teaching American Lit, I would just do this when I get to Emily Dickinson.  But as a British Lit teacher and an AP Lit teacher, we still talk about meter, iambic pentameter, and the effect these have on the poetry.  This especially works well after trying to teach a Shakespeare play if you focused any on how iambic pentameter works.

This presentation has students read three Emily Dickinson poems.  Feel free to go into whatever detail about Emily Dickinson's life you would like to add (she had a killer cake recipe and if done her way is coated with brandy and lasts quite a long time!).  Have the kids experience the poetry and get their thoughts.  They are short and different from what many kids are used to, so can be quite fun for discussions.

Then hit them with the common meter lesson.  This will seem boring until they get to the next slide - 

 I've taught this to standard and inclusion kids and they really perk up to this part.  Once you explain to them that all the above poems can be read to this song because of common meter, they are awed.  You are the cool teacher!

Want more cool points as a teacher?  Break out the karaoke machine and have the kids sing the poem into the microphone.

I provided slides to encourage the re-reading of the poems Pokemon-style.  Then we hit them with a few more songs they may be familiar with to wrap it up.  This can take you anywhere between 15 minutes to 30 minutes (maybe more) depending on how conversation goes.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lFyBrFx8ejMu3_1w4l8SvcPVZ91M8k5SsLpVHY8ENhI/edit#slide=id.p

Have fun with it!  

If you want something to help with your iambic pentameter lessons for Shakespeare, look here!

Shameless Plug: One Shots

As we head into the fourth quarter, you find yourself in need of a one-day lesson.  You can get a couple of them from the EET Teacher-Pay-Teachers Store:

Writing Formal Emails - walks your kids through how to format and write an email for when they need to sound professional.  Good for leaving with a substitute since the students can walk themselves through the presentation.

Title Punctuation and Capitalization - by high school, they should already know this, but most do not.

Practicing Inference Using Proverbs - Three one-day activities - students can work together or on their own to figure out the meaning behind these sayings.

Context Clues Practice - American Flag Edition - can they figure out the meaning of these words used in the Pledge of Allegiance and the "Star Spangled Banner"?  

Of course, here at Extreme English Teacher, we are not out to take all of your hard-earned paycheck, you can search the tag LESSON IDEAS and QUICK LESSONS get some freebies!

Reading a Play in Class? Try this Quick Sound FX Tip!

 When students get into the parts they read, reading plays in class can be super fun.  One way to do this is props.  Students love putting on the crowns and witch hats for Macbeth.  Another easy way to get students into it is to assign someone to be the Sound FX specialist.  The Sound FX part looks for places where noises should be made (think old radio dramas) and quite simply they should make those noises.  Did someone enter or exit the scene, have them make walking sounds with their feet and door sounds.  Did Lady Macbeth say she heard an owl?  Hooting should be coming from the Sound FX person.  

I've had some people get so into it, that they became legends in the class.  One girl would go home and search ahead in the play and have computer sound fxs ready to go.  One boy in particular was not a great reader (especially not aloud), but he could make sounds.  The sillier the person gets, the more fun for the class.

Got anymore in-class play tips?  Share them in the comments or shoot me an email!

Introducing Shakespeare to your students?  Try this resource from the Extreme English Teacher TPT store.

Macbeth Fun - Lady Macbeth's Sassy Gay Friend

 Another teacher shared this with me.  Not class appropriate, but fun for those of us who teach Macbeth.  I leave it here for your viewing.  Have a great Thanksgiving! 

Freebie: Macbeth Background Slides

When I teach Macbeth, I like to use as many things as possible to make it immersive.  We have crowns, witches' hats, and sashes for nobility.  For atmosphere, the fog machine comes out and we always add a Sound FX role to the parts list.  The Sound FX person just makes ambient sounds (people walking, owls hooting, thunder, etc.).  

I also have a background for each scene that I have displayed on the screen in the front of the room that I will share with you here.  None of these are my own artwork or photographs and when I made these long ago,  I had no intention of anyone seeing them but my students, so artwork attribution is absent.  

Be that as it may, you may find it useful and you may find other images that work better (if so, please send them my way!)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1utcairdoqPiqPd7qmmuyX6htFUI7WCQc6eMYJ5NbGlY/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p

If you have other things you do the make play reading fun, share it in the comments!