LESSON: Poetry 101 (5 minutes)
Poetry is on the state exam
Usually there are two or three questions
What do students know about poetry?
Simone: I know that poetry rhymes.
Stephanie: It doesn’t always have to rhyme, just sometimes.
Pamela: Sometimes poetry has similes and metaphors.
Raymond: There’s some haikus and couplets.
Egypt: Poetry can be about anything that you want it to be about.
Kiarra: Poems can be in stanzas.
Osiris: Some poems have free verse.
Curtis: Poetry can be singing or rapping.
Someone who shouted out: The blues!
Shaun: There are many different kinds.
Toluwani: There are different types of poetry, and some poetries don’t have to rhyme and they’re called free verse.
Awa: Some poetry has repetition.
Julian: Some poems don’t have a meaning.
Bertram: Some have metaphors and similies.
Nathaniel: They’re not too long and not too short.
Fahtima: Some poems have rules of how many lines and words you can write.
Nicholas: Some poems are about love.
Brandon: Some poems have onomatopoeia.
For the state exam, you need to know:
I. Rhyme Scheme
What is rhyme?
Rhyme is a sound that is repeated in a poem. It can be at the beginning, middle or end of a word. It most often comes at the end of a line but it can also come at any point in the line. The pattern of the rhyme is called rhyme scheme.
I went on a trip to Peru (A)
For some reason I packed some glue. (A)
I opened the case (B)
You should’ve saw my face (B)
The glue was stuck to my shoe. (A)
We could say that this poem has an AABBA rhyme scheme.
II. Personfication
It’s when you give an object or animal a person’s feelings.
The coat is crying.
The rock is mad.
The rock is talking.
The bookbag is scratching.
The cupcakes danced.
The book punched the pages.
Me, the dog and the tree met up and had a conversation.
The clouds cried.
The wind howled in the middle of the night.
III. Simile: a comparison using like or as:
The sky is as blue as the ocean.
The dog was stinky like a pile of garbage.
The road was curvy like a snake.
The basketball was as round as the moon.
Uncle Mike looks like a bike.
The turtle is like an underwater person.
The cake is pink like my dress.
My cat acts as if she was a dog.
IV. Metaphor: a figurative comparison not using like or as.
At the basketball game, the fan was a bullhorn.
The stapler bites into the white flesh with a malevolent look on its face.
On the football field, Refrigerator Perry was a steamroller.
The wave is a blue monster.
The sky is blue and it reminds me of a tear.
She was fatter than two oceans put together.
Poetry notes — 11/17/08
