Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 6: Teach a Poem

Have each student present a poem to the class.

After reading the poem aloud, students can discuss the following:

• Author - Who is the author? What is his or her history? When did he or she write this poem? Give additional pertinent author background information.


• Figurative Speech - metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole


• Poetic Devices - onomatopoeia, repetition, alliteration


• Rhyme Scheme - Does the poem rhyme? If so, which lines rhyme? How many lines does the poem contain? How many stanzas? Is this poem in a particular form such as a sonnet or a limerick?


• Meter - What is th meter of the poem? Iambic? Trochaic? How many syllables are accented per line?


• Analysis of the Poem - What does it mean? How is that meaning conveyed? Could there be alternate interpretations?

Limericks

Limericks are a fun, silly form of poetry. They are 5 lines long. The first, second, and fifth lines are longer and rhyme. The third and forth lines are shorter and rhyme.

Examples

There was a young man with a jeep
Who drove across a river quite deep
He was swept off his course
By the river's strong force
And he now sails the oceans in that jeep

There once was a camel with three humps
Who came down with a case of the mumps
When the doctor arrived
He said with a sigh,
"That beast didn't need some more lumps."

Fortune Cookie Couplets

Couplets are a pair of lines in a poem. Rhyming couplets are what their name describes: two lines of poetry that rhyme.

Write at least 5 different rhyming couplets. The topic for each couplet should be a future prediction someone might get in a fortune cookie. An example might be "I'm happy to say / You'll have a great day" or "If you cheat on that test / You'll end up in a mess."

Once you've written your rhyming fortunes, cut them into small strips of paper that could fit inside a fortune cookie. (One recipe I read suggested 3 1/2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.)

Then make a recipe for fortune cookies, placing one of your rhyming couplets inside each one.

Here are a few Fortune cookie recipes I found on the net:

• About.com Fortune Cookie Recipe


• Fortune Cookies So Easy


• All Recipes Fortune Cookies III

Clerihew Poem

To create a Clerihew Poem:

1. Pick a famous person's name.


2. Make a list of words that rhyme with that person's last name.


3. Write one rhyming couplet (two lines of poetry that rhyme). The first line should end with your famous person's last name. The second line should rhyme with the first line, using one of the rhyming words from your list.


4. Write another rhyming couplet that gives more information about your famous person.

Example:

Someday I'd like to meet Tom Hanks
And offer him my many thanks
For showing techniques to survive
Now, I know how to stay alive!