Poetry Time!

I love teaching poetry.  My goal is always to make my students like poetry more after the lesson than they did before they came in the door.  I teach five poetic tools that make poetry sound great:

1. end line rhyme: rhyme at the end of a line
2. internal line rhyme: rhyme in the middle of a line
3. repetition: the same word or phrases repeated
4. alliteration: words that start with the same sound that appear close together in a line of poetry
5. onomatopoeia: words that sound like their meaning

The students were to write a poem that included at least two of these tools.  I read some beautiful poems, but Kaitlin's (entering 5th grade) absolutely amazed me with its length, use of tools, and depth of thought.  Enjoy!

Quiet Leaves


The leaves are rustling
In the breeze
The sound so quiet
Among the trees.
But wait!
A sound that's barely audible
A sound so tiny, so very small
Like an echo in a waterfall.
A shake, a snap, a whisk of wind
Wakes me from my daydream
It's so peaceful and so still
I fall asleep against my will.


Once again I'm awakened
From my quiety dream
But this time instead of wind, surprise surprise!
A pattering of furry feet makes everything seem
That it wasn't all just a dream.


But now as I sit atop a hill
I start to wonder why
Why this, why that, why everything
Why's it easy as slicing pie
To rhyme what I have been through
Just sitting in the forest on a quiet summer day.
What I've seen, and heard, and even felt
The chirping of a bird, the woodsy green,
The feelings I have felt.


And I begin to ask myself, I say
Did being in that patch of grass, with trees surrounding me,
Did being out there help me learn in any kind of way?
Yes, it did, it helped me yearn for serenity and days of quiet peace.


Now I wonder,
Which is better, calm or loud?
Calm is always right to me,
Especially for poetry-
And listening to leaves.


Here is Dara's (entering 5th grade).  I love her onomatopoeia and rhyme!

Crunch crunch go the leaves
Under my little feet.
Piles and piles and piles of leaves
What a fun little treat.


Red, orange, yellow leaves
Glistening in the morning sun,
Mmmmmm... what is that I smell?
It's mom's fresh baked buns!