Environment Poetry

Andrew Frolish

Description

This is a great new resource that provides a selection of poems, lesson plans and worksheets, designed to be used by Key Stage 2 teachers in literacy lessons. The poems and lesson plans are based on a variety of environmental issues, such as recycling, dramatic weather changes and environmental disasters (like oil spills). The book contains 24 lessons with cross-curricular links to support learning in other subject areas. Their interest coincides with the need for schools to raise awareness of environmental concerns and to become more sustainable organisations.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 19 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781907515989
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title page
Environment Poetry
For Key Stage 2 Literacy Lessons
Andrew Frolish



Copyright page
Originally published by Hopscotch, a division of MA Education, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London, SE24 0PB
www.hopscotchbooks.com
020 7738 5454
2012 digital version by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© 2010 MA Education Ltd.
Written by Andrew Frolish.
Illustrated by Emma Turner, Fonthill Creative, 01722 717057
All rights reserved. This resource is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except where photocopying for educational purposes within the school or other educational establishment that has purchased this book is expressly permitted in the text.
Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright of material in this book and the publisher apologises for any inadvertent omissions. Any persons claiming copyright for any material should contact the publisher who will be happy to pay the permission fees agreed between them and who will amend the information in this book on any subsequent reprint.
All poems are the copyright of Andrew Frolish.



Introduction
About this book
All children should be given opportunities to read and write poetry. By nature, children are often very creative and are capable of surprising insights and observations. They love ‘playing’ with words and rhyme, metaphor and simile, and tackling complex ideas in raps and verse. Their language is vibrant and colourful. However, many teachers lack confidence in their ability to teach poetry. There are several issues teachers face when planning lessons. Firstly, it can be hard to source poems that incorporate the themes or skills they wish to teach, while being at a suitable level for the children in the class. Also, for some teachers, it may be a long time since they studied or analysed a poem for themselves, let alone wrote poetry. This lack of experience with the ‘tools’ poets use means that, once poems have been selected for study, teachers are sometimes unsure how to help children understand the text, and how to inspire and draw out the children’s own creativity.
One of the keys to unlocking the hidden poets within children is to engage them with subject matter that captures their interest. Many children are genuinely moved by a variety of environmental issues and the relationship between humans and the natural world. Children show a great deal of concern for, and a surprising knowledge of, endangered animals, water conservation, renewable energy sources and recycling. They are fascinated by environmental disasters and changing weather patterns. This interest coincides with the increasing need for schools to be more environmentally-friendly organisations. Schools are attempting to reduce their ‘carbon footprints’ and improve environmental awareness, earning accreditation as ‘eco-schools’ for their efforts. Therefore, it would make sense to teach the skills and techniques of poetry (and other text types) through this subject, motivating and getting the best out of learners.
Indeed, many schools and teachers are moving towards a more cross-curricular approach. The personalised learning agenda is all about the possibilities for developing key skills through subjects and themes that interest and influence children. Teaching something like poetry in a discrete way is a missed opportunity.
This book aims to support teachers by: providing poems for use in the classroom enabling them to deliver activities that develop children’s skills in analysing and writing poetry reducing workload through the provision of plans and resources presenting ideas for cross-curricular teaching and learning planning lessons based on objectives from the Primary Strategy covering a range of environmental themes.
This book aims to support children by: improving their ability to read and analyse a poem developing the skills necessary to write good poetry raising their awareness of a range of environmental issues providing opportunities to access activities in a range of learning styles.
This book is for teachers of children in Key Stage 2 although some of the poems would also be suitable for Key Stage 1 children.
The book provides a selection of poems based on environmental issues, a subject that interests children, and that schools are keen to tackle in different ways.
A glossary provides simple explanations of various poetic terms in a way that is accessible to children, using examples where necessary. For older children, this could be photocopied for them to keep and refer to.
Each poem is accompanied by a lesson plan and worksheets, which support literacy learning and link to other subjects.
The poems are available in PDF format on www.hopscotchbooks.com through the ‘look inside’ facility. This enables teachers to present the poems on an interactive whiteboard for whole class discussion and annotation.
In addition, PDF files of the poems are included on the accompanying CD, alongside audio recordings of the poems read by the author. Listening to the poems being performed is an engaging alternative experience.
The Literacy Objectives grids on page 10 show the poetry units for each year group from the Primary Strategy, alongside the relevant Strands the units should cover. So many Strands are linked to each unit that the text in the grids is quite small. It is recommended that the grids are enlarged to A3 for ease of use. In order to cover all the Strand Objectives, it is not sufficient to use just the poems from this book. The poems and lessons presented here provide a strong starting point and an opportunity to link Literacy to other curriculum areas. Also, please note that Year 5 Unit 2 Classic Narrative Poetry is not covered in this book as children need to study classic poems for this unit.
Lesson plans
Each poem in the book is accompanied by a lesson plan.
The plans include: objectives linked to the Primary Literacy Strategy key vocabulary ‘warm up’ or activities to start the lesson questions to ask about the poems in discussions or group reading activities supported by worksheets ideas for cross-curricular links.
How to prepare and carry out the lessons
You will need a white board and pen for making notes. If you have access to an interactive whiteboard, this will make it easier to annotate the poems during whole class discussion, with the poem and notes clearly visible on the screen.
Children should have a copy of the poem being studied, a pen or pencil and a highlighter pen.
Introducing the session to the children
Share the objectives of the session with the children (see the lesson plan). Explain that you will use an example poem to help tackle the objectives. Warn the children that some poems are difficult to understand at first. They should think of themselves as ‘poetry detectives’ solving a ‘poetry puzzle or mystery’, and not be put off if it seems hard at first. ‘Poetry detectives’ look for clues and evidence to help them solve the puzzle.
Start by using the warm up activity to introduce the session. This should help you to explore the environmental subject matter or one of the key skills of poetry reading and writing. It will give the children something to look out for in the example poem when they read it. Tell the children that the warm up will get their poetry brains working!
Studying the poems
Explain to the children that there are two things we can study in a poem.
1. The content or subject matter. What is the poem about? What is the theme? How do we know? What are the key word choices?
2. The form or how the poem has been written. How is the poem divided up? How does the poet create rhythm? Is there a particular structure or pattern? What poetic techniques or ‘tools’ have been used?
Each child should be given a copy of the poem being studied. They should have the chance to read through the poem individually or in pairs. Then they should follow the text as it is read out loud.
Encourage the children to annotate the poem – demonstrate how this may be done. With experience, the children will become better at this. Children should underline key words and highlight examples of rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia and assonance as appropriate. Which words help to create the ‘mood’ of the poem? If the poem is divided into stanzas, circle, annotate and label each stanza – what is it for? What information is given in that stanza? Does each stanza have a different purpose, meaning or focus? See the example of an annotated poem below.
Sequences of poems
There are two sequences of poems in this collection, allowing for extended study over several lessons. Exploring longer texts enables children to discuss the subject matter to a greater depth, and can be a more satisfying and enjoyable experience.
The Serpent Rises consists of three poems about the sea, fog and a forest fire, in which these are likened to a serpent or snake. The following poem, Fire Fighters , is linked in theme and could form part of the sequence of lessons.
The final six poems in this collection are all based on the Carbosaurus , a monster used as a metaphor for cl