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Poetry Friday : July 1, 2016.

sea_joy

Sea Joy
Jacqueline Bouvier

When I go down by the sandy shore
I can think of nothing I want more
Than to live by the booming blue sea
As the seagulls flutter round about me

I can run about–when the tide is out
With the wind and the sand and the see all about
And the seagulls are swirling and diving for fish
Oh–to live by the sea is my only wish


In My Classroom
The following is a listing of my Teaching Points for “Sea Joy”

Phonemic awareness / literary devices —

  • Rhyming words: shore/more, sea/me, out/about, fish/wish
  • Alliteration:   by the booming blue

Poetry structure —

  • Rhyme scheme — A,A, B B, CC, DD (couplets use this rhyme scheme)

Vocabulary —

  • Neighborhood words for ocean, e.g., beach, waves, surf, tidewater, shells, ships (an activity of gathering words we connect with ocean from our schema)
  • List of words from poem we can explore
    sandy (adj. from sand, suffix -y to create adj. from nouns)
    shore (discuss with sea, ocean, lake; river has a bank; used in eastern coastal states, e.g., Jersey shore,  but not commonly used in northwestern coastal states)
    sea (What is the difference between sea and ocean? When do you think they are most often used interchangeably?)
    seagulls (seabirds: others, in nautical literature)
    tide (high, low tides; metaphorical use)
    flutter, swirling, diving (strong verbs– their connections to air and water)

Author’s tone creating the reader’s mood —

  • Wistful — Identify the mood (reader) / tone (author) and the words that create that emotion
    Line 2: I can think of nothing I want more
    Last line: Oh … is my only wish
  •  A wonderful resource from a HS teacher on tone and mood

About the poem —

  • Author:  Jacqueline Bouvier (wife of President John F. Kennedy)
  • Date: 1939 (poem was written when Jackie was 10 years old)
  • Published in A Family of Poems, Caroline Kennedy (daughter of Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy)
  • Poem & Illustration displayed in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

One of my favorite poetry activities with all ages —

  • Materials: Copy of poem, timer, colored pencil set for each student
  • Procedures:
  1. Teacher reads poem aloud without introduction or explanation of vocabulary, setting, etc., without showing text or illustrations; students listen and imagine (close eyes)
  2. Without comment, students draw images / a picture that the poem evokes using only colored pencils (Teacher sets timer; on an average, I allow 3 minutes)
  • Ways to share or things to do with poem drawings:
  1. Share drawings, talking about similarities and differences of images
  2. Talk about words that prompted the images
  3. Make connections to students’ sea schema
  4. Add labels to the drawing (sometimes I allow only words from the poem)
  5. Put poem and drawing in Poetry Notebook

Why should I share a poem with my students? Here are four reasons.


Today’s Poetry Friday round up is hosted by Tabatha Yeatts @ The Opposite of Indifference

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