ClassEd Newsletter
Summer 2001
Poetry in the Classical Homeschool
Disclaimer: As is true for all articles written on this web site, my professional background is in theoretical research in physics. In regards to poetry or any part of homeschooling, I am no expert. I am merely a homeschool mother who through trial and error have found methods and materials which work well and have been enjoyable for our four children. In this endeavour to write up our attempts at poetry analysis I am heavily indebted to the createive ladies of the Classical Rhetoric loop as well as the ladies of the TAH email loop. Any mistakes, misinterpretations or blunders in this article including spelling and grammatical errors are entirely mine. --lmj
A Case for Poetry: The study of poetry is an integral part of a classical education. Poetry is the highest form of art, in that it is conceived in the depths of the mind and is dependent only on words to create beauty. Poetry can express the deepest thoughts and feelings where prose and expository writings fail. (Fowler, 1924).
CONTENTS:
Memorizing Poetry
Curriculum Review: Grammar of Poetry
A home-made follow up to Grammar of Poetry
Favorite Anthologies
Favorite Links
Poetry is meant to be read out loud or recited . We work on poetry memorization daily in our homeschool. My 4 children ages 4-11 spend 5 minutes daily working on memorizing a stanza per week.
When the kids have memorized a whole poem, we type it up on the word processor, print a copy for each child which they paste in their poetry notebook. They draw pictures around the printed poem... this idea was one of many wonderful ideas I found in Laura Berquist's poetry anthology, Harp and Laurel Wreath (Ignatuis Press).
Curriculum Review:
Grammar of Poetry: Imitation in Writing
by Matt Whitling of Logos School
While the enjoyment and memorization of poetry came fairly easy for us, our family knew little of rhyme, meter nor of devices of sound and sense. In the past we looked high and low on the Internet to find a site or book to help us along, when, VOILA!.... in the summer of 2000 Grammar of Poetry by Matt Whitling came off the press from Logos School.
WHO: This curriculum is geared for Middle School Students. It is meant to teach and practice the terminology of prosody.... that is, the nuts and bolts of poetry.
WHAT: Grammar of Poetry sells as a consumable student text and a teacher's manual. While many people like a teacher's manual, this one is mostly an answer key with a couple of pages of teaching tips in the beginning. The answers are nice to have while one is still unsure of the terminology, but I found, that I never used it past the first 2-3 lessons. The back of the Student Text contains a wonderful anthology featuring about 50 poems, some long, some short, mostly of a historical nature.
The anthology sports examples from poets writing about the history of antiquity all the way up to modern days. It features biographical verses like Paul Revere's Ride, well known poets like Wordsworth and Wolfe, and finally a few "no-name" poems such as the hilarious Carmen Possum.
CONTENT: The book covers basic meter and foot, the most commonly used rhyme schemes in the English language as well as about a dozen figures of speech. You may already be familiar with a few of them: alliteration, pun, personification.
HOW: The lessons are presented in a straight forward manner. First, a definition of the new term is presented followed by examples of the uses of the term, then practice of the term by recognizing its use in verses and finally a review of all previously learned material. Interspersed in the 30 lessons are 7 lessons where the students write their own poetry, following a known model, combining and using the terms they have already learned.
All the lessons focus on a straight forward protocol for "scanning". Scanning means identifying the meter, foot and rhyme of a poem. This concept is used and reviewed throughout the text. By the time your student is done with the course, he will be able to pick up most English poems, read through them a couple of times. Then to the amazement of grandma and neighbors, he will utter: The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron: anapestic tetrameter, rhyme scheme AABB."
COMMENTS: This book is unique, at least, I have not seen any other curricula aimed solely at the structure of poetry with this level of rigor and imitation. Just for fun, Matt Whitling inserted some challenging riddles in several lessons. The humor in the book is abundant in the many delightfully funny examples of speech, especially in the lessons on figures. My son chuckled aloud as he did synecdoche and pun. The stanzas used for practice and review of terms, increase in complexity. Whitling begins with the rhyme and meter of well-known nursery rhymes, and quickly moves on to great poets such as Byron, Blake and Benet.
I went through all 30 lessons with my oldest son in one semester. The course is set up to be taught for 30 minutes three times per week for 15 weeks. It could also be done twice a week and perhaps stretched over a year. In several instances, we chose to spend more time on a particular lesson
CAUTIONS:
1) Much as I recommend this wonderful resource, IF your student is a weak speller or if your student has trouble dividing words into syllables, this is not the time to "torture" him with poetry. Make spelling and syllabication a priority first.
2) If you're the type who is inclined to make up your own materials, you may not wish to buy this resource. Certainly, you can make up your own list of prosody terms, figure out a simple model of imitation and go without this book. For you the only advantage to Grammar of Poetry would be that each lesson comes with "ready-to-go" examples. It takes time digging through poetry anthologies every day looking for 8 stanzas to illustrate the daily lesson on dactylic trimeter.
3) If you are looking for a resource which teaches the analysis of the meaning of poetry, this is not the book for you.
CONCLUSIONS: Don't worry, moms, if you don't know an "iamb" from an "anapest" or can't tell a "synecdoche" from a "euphemism". By the time you and your student have worked through this, you will!! The lessons are both instructive and fun. Many components of poetry, such as hyperbole and onomatopeia can be hilariously funny. This course is most enjoyable and instructive, well worth the $30. It has enhanced our appreciation for the structure of poetry as well as increased our knowledge of figures of speech. I highly recommend it.
Our "Home-made" Grammar of Poetry part II
Now that we have completed the course, we are (with confidence, I might add) scanning and practicing imitation of poetry on our own. We scan many of the poems in the Grammar of Poetry Anthology in the back of the student text but we also use a myriad of other anthologies. With the help of the imitation model of Whitling's lessons, I have generated my own "advanced" poetry lessons with a list of figures of speech and other more advanced poetic terms.
My 11 year old son spends two days per week for 30 minutes working on our home-made poetry lessons.
Our scope and sequence for the school year consists of roughly 32 weeks with new terms interspersed with lessons focused on review:
spondee
review meters from last year
rhymed verse
review last year's figure of speech definitions
blank verse
review feet terminology
free verse
figure of speech definitions
internal rhyme
masculine rhyme
feminine rhyme
triple rhyme
rhyme review
find figures of speech in sentences
assonance
consonance
couplets through octaves
figure of speech examples
metonymy
litotes
review couplets through octaves
review meters
antithesis
apostrophe
figure of speech review
symbols
limericks
ballads
review of figures
review of meters
sonnets
Final review
The FIRST DAY's work sheet covers the following material:
Term of the week : [taken from the scope and sequence list in order]
Definition of term
Example of new term used in sentence
Write the Title of your "Poem of the week:"
Title
Author:
STRUCTURE analysis:
STANZA FORMS (circle one if appropriate )
couplet,
triplet,
quatrain,
quintet,
sestet,
septet, octave
special stanza forms (when appropriate)
sonnet (Shakespearean/Spencerian),
ballad,
ode,
epic,
dramatic,
lyric,
limerick,
haiku,
spatial,
other ________
Meter:
iamb
trochee
anapest
dactyl
spondee
divide into Feet
Metrical lines (circle one)
mono,
di,
tri,
tetra,
penta,
hexa..etc
Rhyme Scheme: (circle one or more, give examples)
internal rhyme
masculine rhyme
feminine rhyme
triple rhyme
Devices of sound: (circle one or more, give examples of each)
assonance
consonance
alliteration
onomatopeia
refrain
Figures of speech (circle one or more, give examples)
Simile, metonymy,
Metaphor, litotes,
Pun, antithesis,
Personification, apostrophe,
Synecdoche, Rhetorical Question,
Hyperbole, Refrain,
Onomatopoeia, Oxymoron,
Alliteration, Euphemism
(the list of figures is added to as more figures are learned)
CONTENT OF POEM:
What are the theme(s) of the poem?
Characters, objects, ideas:
Who is the speaker?
Describe
Is there an addressee?
Describe
What is the mood of the poem?
serious/ironic/satiric/funny etc.
Substantiate your answer
DAY 2 of home-made poetry sheets:
The aim is to rewrite the poem of the week into prose
Name of Poem:
Author:
1. Read poem out loud (often this would coincide with our memory work and the child would actually have the poem memorized or being in the process of doing so)
2. Write down unfamiliar words
word
definition
word
definition
.....et.c.
3. Reread poem
4. Using 3 key words per stanza,summarize outline the poem:
stanza 1
stanza 2
stanza 3
stanza 4
stanza 5
.......
5. Central idea of poem:
6. Paraphrase poem in 100 - 300 words, depending on length and compexity of poem.
List of Poems we have worked on and/or memorized for ages 4-11:
Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson
To Alice Cunningham by Robert Louis Stevenson
Pirate Story by Robert Louis Stevenson
Destruction of Sennacherib By Lord Byron
Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes
What is Pink by Christian Rossetti
The Burial of Sir John Moore by Charles Wolfe
Careless Willie by Anonymous,
The Whole Duty of Children by Robert Louis Stevenson, ,
The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson,
My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson,
The Wind by Robert Louis Stevenson,
The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson,
The Cow by Robert Louis Stevenson,
Animal Crackers by Christopher Morley,
The Little Turlte by Vachel Lindsay,
Father William by Robert Southey,
Sweet and Low by Alfred Lord Tennyson,
The Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson,
The Puffin by Florence Page Jacques,
Captain Kidd by Stephen Vincent Benet,
Good Morning Merry sunshine by Anonymous,
The Song of Mr. Toad By Lewis Carroll,
Today by Thomas Carlyle,
True Worth by Alice Carey.
Though I do make plans for specific poems to cover in our poetry lessons, I do not have a set list of poems for my 11 year old to work on. He generally chooses his own out of one of our many anthologies.
My favorite ANTHOLOGY for adults is The Illustrated Library of World Poetry edited by William Cullen Bryant (Gramercy). For homeschooling, we make most use of Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist (Ignatius Press). Her anthology is divided into pre-grammar, grammar , logic and rhetoric stage poems with definitions and study questions. We also enjoy Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Ferris (Double Day), which is poetry by subject. fe.x. humor, animals, familiy, etc.
Cheaper than those, are all the Dover Thrift Poetry paperbacks. Our Child's Garden of Verses by Stevenson is a Dover Thrift, ditto for our complete set of Shakespeare's Sonnets and our 100 Best Loved Poems. The thrift volumes cost less than $1 per book through Amazon. A homeschool mother and friend of mine suggested buying several Thrift anthologies for each child so they can mark their poems up in the book to figure out meter and rhyme. This has saved me many hours of not having to type up poems to prevent the marking up of expensive hard cover anthologies.
FAVORITE POETRY LINKS:
Glossary of Poetic Terms
Rhyming Dictionary for Poetry and Song Writing
Awesome web page for examples of poetry
Lyrical Ballads
PBS poetry web site
Poetic Terms
Western Poets
Emily Dickinson Complete Poems
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Email me with comments, questions and corrections: ClassyMom24 Thank you -- lmj
You are visitor number 
since 6-03-01