Happy Holidays!

All of the poetry recordings are posted! Check them out!

Just go to this page, click, and listen!  If you want a copy, right-click and save-as.

I think we really bonded as a class as we cheered each other on and listened to the poems WE wrote.

We are done our work until after break. 

The poems are due tomorrow.

Here is the rubric for section 1:

Rubric for your Poems

100 points

(20) ____  Sound devices:

           Rhyme, Assonance, Rhythm, Repetition, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia

           I suggest you write a little something on a separate sheet to prove it.

(20) ____ Figurative language: 

          Include similes, metaphors, and/or personification

          I suggest you write a little something on a separate sheet to prove it.

(10) ____ How would you illustrate this? 

         Make it look pretty!

(30) ____ Yours must have 200 total syllables:

         Put number after EACH line and total at end

         300 syllables is 100% in this section.

(20) ____ You will read your ballad to the class Wednesday:

         Put number after EACH line and total at end

The poems are due Wednesday!

Having trouble finding rhymes?  Try this site.

Section 1 owes me syllables.
I have set a 100% at 300 syllables; 200 is a 95%.  They are allowed to write in any format, but I am asking that they incorporate the ideas we have been discussing: form, sound, imagery, figurative language, and voice. 


Here is the rubric for Section 3 and 4.  Section 1 will look similar.

Rubric for your Ballad

100 points

(10) ____ Length: I would suggest 8 stanzas.         

        Topics:

Ballad about you

Pick an event that should be memorialized

Honor a person

(10) ____ Syllables per line:  (form) 

          9 

(10) ____ Rhyme scheme: (sound)

         ABAB  or   AABB  or    ABCB

(10) ____ Figurative language: 

          Include a simile or a metaphor (personification)

(10) ____ How would you illustrate this? 

         Make it look pretty!

(20) ____ Yours must have 200 total syllables:

         Put number after EACH line and total at end

(30) ____ You will read your ballad to the class Wednesday:

         Put number after EACH line and total at end

Interims are due today

Please check your child's HAC.

The AR was due today.  I will enter the score into HAC soon. 

That is all.  :)

Poetry study and writing

Hwk: Sections 3 and 4 should finish the worksheet we started in class so we can discuss the ballad.  Section 1 students should be working on their poems.  AR is also due tomorrow.

Section 1 studied "The Charge of the Light Brigade" today.  We examined how the form and sound helped convey the theme.  Then I gave them time to work on their poems.  Section has some slightly different writing options than sections 3 and 4.

Sections 3 and 4 studied "The Ballad of William Sycamore."  I have a worksheet with lots of questions to analyze the poem.  These two sections will be writing ballads.  The ballad must have over 200 syllables.  Over the next week, we will be studying examples and how to get started.  Today we started with diving their lives into eight stanzas.  If you look at the poem below, you will see how his life is laid out in 19 stanzas.  We will finish studying the ballad tomorrow.

This ballad has similes, a metaphor, onomatopoeia, alliteration, personification, and color imagery.  The syllable count is consistent, and there is a regular rhyme scheme.  It is a great example for the students to imitate! 

THE BALLAD OF WILLIAM SYCAMORE
by: Stephen Vincent Benét

Y FATHER, he was a mountaineer,

His fist was a knotty hammer;

He was quick on his feet as a running deer,

And he spoke with a Yankee stammer.

 

My mother, she was merry and brave,

And so she came to her labor,

With a tall green fir for her doctor grave

And a stream for her comforting neighbor.

 

And some are wrapped in the linen fine,

And some like a godling's scion;

But I was cradled on twigs of pine

In the skin of a mountain lion.

 

And some remember a white, starched lap

And a ewer with silver handles;

But I remember a coonskin cap

And the smell of bayberry candles.

 

The cabin logs, with the bark still rough,

And my mother who laughed at trifles,

And the tall, lank visitors, brown as snuff,

With their long, straight squirrel-rifles.

 

I can hear them dance, like a foggy song,

Through the deepest one of my slumbers,

The fiddle squeaking the boots along

And my father calling the numbers.

 

The quick feet shaking the puncheon-floor,

And the fiddle squealing and squealing,

Till the dried herbs rattled above the door

And the dust went up to the ceiling.

 

There are children lucky from dawn till dusk,

But never a child so lucky!

For I cut my teeth on "Money Musk"

In the Bloody Ground of Kentucky!

 

When I grew as tall as the Indian corn,

My father had little to lend me,

But he gave me his great, old powder-horn

And his woodsman's skill to befriend me.

 

With a leather shirt to cover my back,

And a redskin nose to unravel

Each forest sign, I carried my pack

As far as a scout could travel.

 

Till I lost my boyhood and found my wife,

A girl like a Salem clipper!

A woman straight as a hunting-knife

With eyes as bright as the Dipper!

 

We cleared our camp where the buffalo feed,

Unheard-of streams were our flagons;

And I sowed my sons like the apple-seed

On the trail of the Western wagons.

 

They were right, tight boys, never sulky or slow,

A fruitful, a goodly muster.

The eldest died at the Alamo.

The youngest fell with Custer.

 

The letter that told it burned my hand.

Yet we smiled and said, "So be it!"

But I could not live when they fenced the land,

For it broke my heart to see it.

 

I saddled a red, unbroken colt

And rode him into the day there;

And he threw me down like a thunderbolt

And rolled on my as I lay there.

 

The hunter's whistle hummed in my ear

As the city-men tried to move me,

And I died in my boots like a pioneer

With the whole wide sky above me.

 

Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil,

Like the seed of the prairie-thistle;

It has washed my bones with honey and oil

And picked them clean as a whistle.

 

And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring,

And my sons, like the wild-geese flying;

And I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing

And have much content in my dying.

 

Go play with the towns you have built of blocks,

The towns where you would have bound me!

I sleep in my earth like a tired fox,

And my buffalo have found me.

'The Ballad of William Sycamore' was originally published by Stephen Vincent Benét in 1922.

We are starting ballads

I am NOT doing vocab until after the break.  We will need the time to write our ballads.

Wednesday, December 12: The first AR test for the MP must be done.
Wednesday, December 19: Ballad is due- typed, illustrated, looking good.
Wednesday, December 19: Read ballad to the class

We will be studying ballads and narrative poems in the days to come.  The students will learn what is expected of them over the next few days.

We will be looking at these and other examples:
     "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
     "Ballad of Birmingham"
     "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

      and some others as needed

As of now, the requirements for the ballad look like this:

    Long enough
    Tells a story
    Consistent rhyme scheme
    Neat and illustrated
    Read your ballad to the class with energy

I am going to have the students shoot for 200 syllables.  Depending on their line length, they should try to divide their story into 8 stanzas of four lines each.  The poem below is one we will read.  It has approximately 234 syllables.  I am having the students use a syllable counting site to make it easy, but they must put their syllable count at the end of each line.

Model piece for this assignment

“Ballad of Birmingham”

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)

"Mother dear, may I go downtown                     (8)
Instead of out to play,                                         (6)
And march the streets of Birmingham               (8)
In a Freedom March today?"                             (7)

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"

Written by Dudley Randall (1914-2000)

The poetry readings have begun!

Sample of poetry project.

Here is a great example of what a poetry reading should sound like!

I will post more as I have time.

I collected the poetry projects today.  (Not everyone had them, though. They are now late.)

1st Accelerated Reader test of MP 2 is due in one week!

I just looked at the test scores from this marking period.  There are none... well, a few.  Most students have not taken a test this marking period.  There is no excuse for this.  The date has been on the board, and students have had plenty of access to computers to take the tests.

Section 1 must take three tests per marking period.  Sections 3 and 4 must take two.  These are not small grades.

Please encourage your child to get reading.

The Red Chief essays are graded (section 3 very soon)

We are performing the poems tomorrow! 
The students also owe me something that looks like one of these.

The Red Chief essays are graded

I had to get the Red Chief pieces graded, so I gave them a quick grade.  I read them without making any marks or comments.  Trust me, it is not how I like to grade!  I know students want feedback, but I am pressed for time.  I am also teaching grammar each day now, so I did not scour the essays for errors. 

As I read, I asked myself these questions:

Was it long enough with enough details?

Was it organized with an intro, different paragraphs, and a conclusion?

Did the grammar interfere or distract me from the understanding the piece?

Then I gave it a score based on the model I had in my head of what the paper should have looked like.