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Becky Parker
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 1:03pm | IP Logged
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I am thinking about doing a poet study next year. I have always just read through books of poetry that I like (ie, Favorite Poems Old and New) but I thought it would be interesting to study one poet at a time. I was looking at the Poetry For Young People series to use for this.
If you have any input regarding these books it would be much appreciated.
I'm also wondering, if you were to put together a poet study, which poets would you include? (For grade school children. My oldest is 13.)
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 3:20pm | IP Logged
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We have used these books, as our library has most all of them. I like them a lot and use them for biography purposes and then after we've read several of the poems aloud without the book, I let the kids read the illustrated poems from the book. I sort of like to get the kids to form their own thoughts and images on their own first, before seeing someone else's illustration of poetry. They mention this on the AO website, and I think it's a valid thing, especially for poetry. Not that I'm a nazi about it....but I just don't make the book AVAILABLE until we've read a few of the poems without it.
I like that they have already selected "the most famous" or "the best of the best" for you.....so you don't have to page through tons of books for the well-known ones.
There are pronunciation guides. And, certain explanations of various words that the kids may not be familiar with.
Here is some info from the Poets section of Ambleside Online:
AmblesideOnline wrote:
There's a picture book series called Poetry For Young People that might be useful if you like to have a book for each term (but keep in mind that it's preferable for children to form images in their minds from the words rather than relying on an artist's impression). Books available for AO in Years 1-6:
Year 3 William Blake, edited by John Maynard, illus by Alessandra Cimatoribus
Year 3 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, edited by Frances Schoonmaker, illus by Chad Walker
Year 4 Alfred Tennyson, edited by John Maynard, illus by Allen Garns
Year 4 Emily Dickinson, edited by Frances Schoonmaker, illus by Chi Chung
Year 4 William Wordsworth, edited by Alan Liu, illus by James Muir
Year 5 Rudyard Kipling, edited by Eileen Gillooly, illus by Jim Sharpe
Year 5 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, edited by Frances Schoonmaker, illus by Chad Walker
Year 6 Robert Frost, edited by Gary D. Schmidt, illus by Henri Sorensen
Year 6 Carl Sandburg, edited by Frances Schoonmaker Bolin, illus by Steven Arcella |
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Becky Parker wrote:
I'm also wondering, if you were to put together a poet study, which poets would you include? (For grade school children. My oldest is 13.) |
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Here are the poets we have studied so far (my dc are 11 and under)
:: R.L. Stevenson
:: Christina Rossetti
:: Walter de la Mare
:: Emily Dickinson
:: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
:: Eugene Field
I use the suggestions on Amblesideonline.org to get ideas for which poets I will choose for the year. But, sometimes I find a neat book or we are drawn to a certain poem and so I pick that poet.
We usually do 2/year. I skip one term....simply b/c it's always just worked out that we need "less" during a term for various reasons....preg, baby, etc.
Here are the Ambleside suggestions by year:
AmblesideOnline wrote:
Year 1
Child's Garden of Verses Robert Louis Stevenson; online at Poetry Lovers, and PG with illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith or Myrtle Sheldon.
Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young A.A. Milne
Oxford Book of Children's Verse Iona and Peter Opie [or other quality collection that features mostly familiar classic children's poems], or AO's collection of 229 classic children's poems. Available by month, 20 poems per page (click Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec) or as a single document.
Year 2
Walter De La Mare
Eugene Field and James Whitcombe Riley
Sing Song by Christina Rossetti
Year 3
William Blake (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Sara Teasdale and Hilda Conkling
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Year 4
Alfred Tennyson (biography) (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Emily Dickinson (biography) (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
William Wordsworth (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Year 5
Rudyard Kipling (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (his longer poems are historically appropriate for Year 5) (optional: Poetry For Young People series)
John Greenleaf Whittier and Paul Laurence Dunbar
Year 6
Robert Frost (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Carl Sandburg (optional: Poetry For Young People series; see note above)
Alfred Noyes |
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 3:28pm | IP Logged
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Thanks so much Suzanne. I didn't think to check Ambleside. I see there are 3 per year. I was originally thinking of doing six, one for each of our 6 week terms. Do you think that would be too many?
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 3:46pm | IP Logged
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I think you can do anything any way, of course. And, b/c you've never done it before maybe it would be fun to introduce several next year....sort of like HEY, LOOK AT ALL THESE POETS! And then, the next year, go to less to establish the simple habit of consistently studying 1-3 poets a year.
I like the idea of staying with someone for a long time (12 weeks in our case). You don't feel rushed and you get to savor and live with their words and get a feel for their work. This is probably more important in the later years, but taking your time and slowly getting to know someone at a younger age is setting the stage for later.
Keep in mind our poet-study is about 15 minutes/week, doing various things. So, it's not a lot. I feel like we need those few months to talk about, learn, enjoy. Also, once kids get to 8+ they will start learning longer poems and they'll need more weeks to memorize and work on a longer poem.
It's a similar concept to savoring-a-book and reading it slowly.
Plus there is always the added-work-for-mom-consideration.  So, simply for KEEPING IT SIMPLE purposes, I tend toward less-is-more. Two poets a year sounds do-able to me and I know that even in survival-mode, we can always do 2 / year. It's not overwhelming to me, which means that I will stick with it over the long run b/c it's not too much.
Does that mean I never check those "other poet" books out from the library and leave them lying around the house or occasionally ask someone to read one of the poems from it? I DO have other poet's poetry around and they are exposed to other poets through the nature or seasonal poems that we work on. But our featured poet is done slower and longer.
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 4:44pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Suzanne! This has helped quite a bit.
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Mackfam
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| Posted: March 19 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged
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Becky Parker wrote:
I'm also wondering, if you were to put together a poet study, which poets would you include? (For grade school children. My oldest is 13.) |
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We like to study one poet a term, usually that means 3 a year, but sometimes it works out to be 2, other times we may move on more quickly and we end up covering 4 poets a year.
I choose our poet based on the historical period we're reading about.....usually, but not always.
Like Suzanne, we don't do a whole lot of involved stuff - we just read about the poet, read their poetry, and enjoy it. We usually memorize 2 or more poems per term. We spend about 15-20 minutes a week on a poet - that's it. So, it's not like we spend daily time on poetry study....BUT....we do read a lot of poetry (almost always as part of our Morning Basket), whether it's seasonal, related to nature study, related to the anniversary of a poet for that day, related to a virtue/character, etc.
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: March 20 2012 at 6:14am | IP Logged
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Thanks Jen. I have to admit, it was your blog post on Walt Whitman that spurred this interest! I think my kids (and I) will enjoy getting to know one poet at a time. I like the idea of them hearing a poem some day and saying "Oh that's Robert Frost". Sort of like if they see a work of art and recognize Rembrandt. The way we have been doing poetry, just sort of randomly, I don't think the kids will ever really get to "know" a particular poet's style. I hope studying one per term, like CM recommends the study of artists and composers, will help.
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Grace&Chaos
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Becky Parker wrote:
| I think my kids (and I) will enjoy getting to know one poet at a time. I like the idea of them hearing a poem some day and saying "Oh that's Robert Frost". Sort of like if they see a work of art and recognize Rembrandt. The way we have been doing poetry, just sort of randomly, I don't think the kids will ever really get to "know" a particular poet's style. I hope studying one per term, like CM recommends the study of artists and composers, will help. |
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That's a great observation! Maybe just within the last two years we've been concentrating our Poet Study to one per term too. Before that it was very random and you are right my girls do seem to get a feel for the poetic style and even enjoy meeting the person. I'll ask their input sometimes and I've had them say " can we get a more fun poet so and so was very serious" or just recently " can we pick a poet with more nature in their poems" Either way it is great to hear that they pick up on such things.
I have my older two study a poet together once a week. They will usually use the series you suggested and one biograpy of some sort. For the particular day this becomes their copywork. Depending on the age/grade I might just let them copy a stanza or two if the poem is too long.
For my younger boys, I pick a poet for the year and read once a week. If we get through all of poet's poem selections we might pick a second one. For my first grader we just starting using his week's poem for copywork too.
Now, that of course, is the more concentrated way to enjoy poetry. It really doesn't take to long. In addition, like Jen mentioned, we usually have poetry we just enjoy that is from other sources and related to seasons or topics. This is just ear candy really.
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 21 2012 at 8:18am | IP Logged
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SuzanneG wrote:
Plus there is always the added-work-for-mom-consideration. So, simply for KEEPING IT SIMPLE purposes, I tend toward less-is-more. Two poets a year sounds do-able to me and I know that even in survival-mode, we can always do 2 / year. It's not overwhelming to me, which means that I will stick with it over the long run b/c it's not too much. |
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Thank you, wise lady.  I am so glad I have you to consistently remind me that the simplest solutions are often the best.
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MamaFence
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| Posted: March 22 2012 at 11:14pm | IP Logged
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I love this thread!! Hearing how easy it is to do poetry/poet study makes it seem much more approachable for me. I have been having the hardest time in our two years of homeschooling working poetry into our studies. Now I feel like I can actually do it.
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: poet study
