Poetry Lesson #2 Reflections a.k.a Whale Talk

We changed our original plan for this week, and I think it was a great move. Instead of beat poetry, the kids worked on their conversational poems. They were paired of in animal/human partnerships, and the teachers decided that all of the writing would be done before hand so that when I came into the classroom we could just focus on performance techniques - It worked beautifully.  Here is the format the teachers used for the students to create their poems:

Conversation Poem Planner

*Use the planner to create your conversation poem between the two characters.

Character #1 - Person Character #2 - Animal

Name: Rustling Cowboy Name: Wild horse

Hey wild horse, where are you? Watch out for my lasso, I think I need a ride! You better go quick, I have my halter and saddle. Sunset is coming and the moon will be in the sky!

I’m galloping on the trail, and looking at the view. Oh no! I better start finding a good place to hide. I’m running down the path fast so I don’t have to face that battle. Good luck catching me because I can really fly!

There were many different pairs, and the poems were great! 

I started class by asking the students; If you were going to be an animal in a play, what could you do to learn about that animal? Where could you go? What would you observe? How it moves? The sounds it makes when it is happy/sad? How it eats?  etc... 

I then showed them the following video (Starting at 2:40)

After this video, I asked the students - What did Dory do to communicate with the whale ? At first they said - "she made her voice sound like a whale voice " but I challenged them to go deeeper. HOW did she do that? The students then talked about pitch, pacing, etc... I also asked them about the krill at the very end. How were their voices different. I pointed out:

1.Whales are very large - they have a huge "Sounding Chamber" and can make a wide range of sounds. They also move very slowly through the ocean most days (or at least it seems slow b/c they are so large) so it makes sense when being a whale to have a big deep voice that can sing high and low, that moves slowly just like the whale

2. The krill are tiny, and they move incredibly quickly. It makes sense to give them a high, squeaky voice and for them to speak very very quickly.

I believe this worked well, and they got the concept! 

The Teachers and I then read poems from an online story book: Imitating the creatures speaking in the poem, and then asked the students to tell us how they observed us acting like the animal while reading.

It was then time to get the kids to work. They paired off in their groups, and we went around to help them and give them encouragement. They jumped right in and had a lot of fun!!

Knight Battling a Dragon!

Princess and the Mouse!

Gorilla and Zoo Keeper (check out those "Gorilla Arms!!)

Our Witch and Spider!!

I believe this lesson went extremely well, and I saw the kids coming out of their shells and really getting silly and having fun with voices and characters - I think it will really play into our fairy tale unit!!!