Meaningful Minutes: Poetry

I just learned that April is Poetry Month.  Great timing because I was planning on talking about it anyway.  Poetry used to be pretty far down on my list of "important things" to teach my kids. However, as you read older books about education memorizing poetry is assumed and considered essential.  They talk about how crucial it is to kids understanding language, using their imaginations, memory, beauty and connecting with nature and history. Yes, poetry can do all this.  As you read the stories of older men - they knew their poetry and often wrote some themselves.

Poetry is truly a lost art.  Our kids rarely hear it.  Often, they read silly, playful poems (which have their place) but don't graduate to other poems.  I highly recommend just making sure your young child knows Mother Goose Rhymes.  I was shocked when my 2 yo was reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to herself as she fell asleep the other day.  Knowing and remembering poetry can help overcome boredom, encourage bravery and do so in a much more memorable way than prose does. Poetry used to have clear "rules" and this actually encouraged great creativity.  Poetry requires precise and rich in vocabulary that help evoke great images.

What poetry should we read?  

Mother Goose Rhymes - sing them, say them, show pictures, draw pictures, tell them from memory - enjoy them!

Jack Perlutsky and Shel Silverstien (be warned not all his works are kid appropriate) are always fun favorites.  If you haven't read any Ogden Nash (this is the one we have)- my kids love his quirky poetry.

In the past, students were introduced to Longfellow, Wordsworth, Robert Louis Stevenson and others at a young age.  There is a whole poetry rotation at Ambleside Online.

A. A. Milne, of Winnie the Pooh fame, also has some great poetry anthologies: Now We are Six and When We Were Very Young.  Casey at the Bat is a fun poem and you can get a musical retelling here.  Another poetry book for younger children is Hailstones and Halibut Bones which has color poems.

As your student hits 4th and 5th grade I highly recommend ballad poetry - the kind that tells of battles, heroic deeds, pirates, love lost and won.  Historic Poems and Ballads is the one that we are using.   It provides some background on the event and then the poem.  It is a reprint of an older book and some pages that is obvious but it hasn't interfered with our enjoyment. Another option is The Book of Heroic Verses.

What do I do with it? 

There are lots of ways to interact with poetry. Please don't just analyze it; enjoy it.  Don't kill yourself trying to memorize it - repeat the ones that you like over and again and you will learn it.  Some people recommend reading a poem three days in a row - adding a new one and repeating two older ones and then rotating.  You can also just read a new poem (or part of one) every day.  Consider having a tea time once a week where you share favorite poetry with each other over lemonade.  Share a favorite poem once a week for a few weeks and you will learn it.  Copy poetry into a place that allows you to keep lines that you love - either individually or as a family.  Maybe you would like to focus on one poet for a few weeks and get to know their work well and then move on to another.  Perhaps variety is more up your alley.  The main thing is to read poetry aloud in your home!

If you really want to make poetry memorization official you can try this program from the Institute for Excellence in Writing.   Another option are the selections included in The Harp and Laurel Wreath. There are also compendiums of more well known poetry out there that you can use for reference:  Sing a Song of Popcorn, Favorite Poems Old and New, Random House Book of Poetry, 101 Famous Poems, 100 Best Loved Poems and Committed to Memory.

There is also a series of books called Poetry for Young People that gathers together the most well known lines of each poet from Robert Frost to Shakespeare to Maya Angelou to Rudyard Kipling. Each book focuses on one poet and has great artwork to accompany the lines they have chosen.

If your children are middle school and up and they enjoy poetry and you want them to learn more about analysis and poem construction The Art of Poetry or The Grammar of Poetry might help you out.  If you are looking for a poetry anthology these might provide some resources.  I am not a huge fan of their student workbooks - but it might fit your child.

I encourage you to add a bit of poetry to your life.  You never know what might happen!

Just for fun:

Keep A Poem In Your Pocket
By Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

Keep a poem in your pocket
And a picture in your head
And you'll never feel lonely
At night when you're in bed.

The little poem will sing to you
The little picture bring to you
A dozen dreams to dance to you
At night when you're in bed.

So - -
Keep a picture in your pocket
And a poem in your head
And you'll never feel lonely
At night when you're in bed.

from http://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/html/poem/poem1b.html

Wednesday with Words: Ambiguity and Mystery

I am almost done with 40 Days of Decrease.  Yes, it is a Lenten devotional and here it is almost Advent, but I couldn't resist it sitting on the shelf at the library. I am going through it out of season - but probably just right for me.  Her format packs a lot of punch in a few pages.  She has a short and novel introduction to an aspect of the Gospel story (she works through John) during Holy Week.  Next she introduces the "fast" for the day - criticism, avoidance, self protection, comparison, apathy - in 40 days you can cover a lot of territory.  Then she looks at a historical or current experience of Lent and preparing for Easter. Finally, she sends you to the Scripture that is somewhat tied to her reflection.  In a few short pages a day she covers history, Scripture, self reflection and meditation all in one.  I have really enjoyed it.

Today I am going to share a sample from Day Ten where we are asked to fast from avoidance.  Here is how she frames this fast:

The unknown triggers different reactions in different hearts and exposes our soul's own defaults.  Ambiguity reveals where we instinctively go to feel the illusion of security.  

She draws this discussion from James and John talking to Jesus about how he needs to tone down the talk about crucifixion.  She asserts that they don't know how to deal with the mixed messages around them so they'll take control (sounds familiar).

She explains

To change our defaults we must first address our theology of uncertainty.  And to address our theology of uncertainty, we must first befriend mystery.  

To help us understand mystery she pulls the following quote:

As I teach the 1st graders at church I am more often referring to the mystery and encouraging them to embrace that there are some things that are God's to know and that we can trust Him.

Today I also was catching up on old podcasts and listened to the Schole' Sisters podcast about teaching the Bible.  It starts with a discussion of synthetic versus analytic thinking.  I am still blown away that Mason thought that the first 15 years should basically be synthetic thinking.  I see her point.  I wonder how to keep the mystery in a culture that wants to dispel all mystery as soon as possible.  I was trained to be a great analytic thinker.

The podcast also talks about the role of poetry in teaching scripture.  Have you ever considered poetry as key to reflective reading of Scripture??  I didn't realize that Charlotte Mason's series Saviour of the World is actually a series of poems to help students reflect on the Gospel.  Now I am fascinated by the concept.  Poetry keeps the mystery in a way that prose just can't.  Maybe that's why so many of us know so little about it - we can't handle the mystery.

Now I am thinking about adding more poetry to our lives.  Maybe I should actually read the poetry books I have collected.  I don't like mystery and ambiguity; but, I need to stop avoiding it and embrace it - just like the devotion encourages me to do.

See what others are reading at Ladydusk.  

Wednesday with Words: Ogden Nash Poetry

We are trying to incorporate more poetry into our day, but I am also trying to take a page from Andrew Pudewa about poetry and young boys - make it fun.  A while back I picked up the book Custard and Company poems by Ogden Nash arranged and illustrated by Quentin Blake at a library book sale. (Blake illustrates lots of Roald Dahl books). These are GREAT poems for boys and the pictures are funny.  Some are short (two lines), some are long, lots describe funny features of animals and the way he plays with words is lots of fun.

Here is a fun example:

The Germ

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

This is not high end poetry but it is well written and fun.  I do think there are probably inappropriate Ogden Nash verses out there but this collection is meant for children.

See what others are reading over at Ladydusk.

Weekly Resource: Primer to Composition, Rhetoric and Literature

I realize that this week I said we'd cover more full fledged Latin curricula; however, I got sucked into google books this week.  I also ventured into Half Price Books (a serious temptation) and found one book on Composition and Rhetoric from 1917 for a dollar.  How can I pass that up?   I did wonder if it was on google books - and it is.  So you too can enjoy this great resource for FREE.

I was looking for something that gave the background to the way they used to approach writing, composition and rhetoric and this book delivers.  This book is so much more than that though!

Composition, Rhetoric and Literature a Four Year's Course for Secondary Schools
Book One: First and Second Years

From the Preface 

This book is based upon the belief that a human being learns by imitation, by repetition, and by challenge to increased exertion.   

It (this book) follows a special arrangement in presenting the subjects: Narration, Description, Exposition and Argumentation. 

 The overall goal

The subject is presented in the belief that what students need is not novelty and intellectual vaudeville, but sustained effort and the discipline which seeks to teach future citizens how to read appreciatively, how to think clearly, and how to express their ideas vividly, rationally, and with straightforward directness. 

Notes to the Teacher  

I.  Apportionment of Time.
First Year:  four recitations a week devoted to Rhetoric and Composition; one recitation to Literature
Second Year:  three recitations a week devoted to Rhetoric and Composition; two recitations to Literature

I think you see the pattern.

Writing Composition - It is expected that every student will write a theme every two weeks during his first two years, and one theme every week during his last two years in the secondary school.  (later he defines themes as short explorations of a topic)

In his suggestions on working with themes he includes these two:

The irksome task of rewriting themes should be insisted upon.
The corrections placed upon themes should be very definite, explicit and yet kindly. 

As regards corrections he says

The first criticism should, of course, be criticism of the arrangement of thought, and every student should be trained by constant vigilance to see unity, coherence, and emphasis in his compositions.  The student's success in the whole theme should be stated first, followed by detailed, specific criticism of faults in grammar, punctuation, diction, sentence structure, and paragraph structure.  (We are talking about high school students here.)

They also discuss reading aloud as a class and discussion and make the point

Training of the Imagination - Training of the visual imagination is something that becomes more and more important in these days when copious illustrations of books leaves little for this faculty to do.  

They end this section by focusing on how to help students best appreciate literature.  

An appreciation of the music of poetry, of melody and cadence, ought surely to be fostered during the early years when the ear is sensitive, for a large share of the enjoyment of literature depends upon the proper cultivation of the love of harmonious sound.  If the same poems are read frequently, they will stay in the memory as guides in the future for judging poetic measures.  Wordsworth's I wandered lonely as a cloud and The Solitary Reaper, Blake's Ah, Sunflower, Burns' A Red, Red Rose, Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd, Ben Jonson's "Drink me to only with thine eyes," the Shakespeare songs, Herrick's "Her eyes the glow worm lend thee" and Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Merci, may be cited as poems possessed of special lyric beauty.  

I think that gives you a great idea of the depth and philosophy of the book,  The first part of the book focuses on the history of the English language, word usage, and grammar basics (with lots of details).  It moves into sentences, then paragraphs, letter writing and then into aspects of narratives (description, characterization, plot, etc.) and arguments. Examples are drawn from published authors to illustrate points. The authors then provide exercises to help students focus on that aspect of writing.

Although I don't think that I would hand this book over for a high schooler to move through on their own, it is an excellent resource.  It touches on practical and poetic aspects of writing and provides simple ways to help students grasp concepts illustrated.  It truly is a step by step guide and resource to help students learn all aspects of writing.  I have not been able to find the second book (year three and four) but honestly, this volume covers much more than most programs out there do.  

If you realize that you don't know much about poetry (like me) you might want to check out the book on Poetics (aimed at college students).  It is a quick introduction (40 pages or so) to meter, types of poems, images and figures in poetry, poetic forms and the like.  Again, each term also has an example from a published poet for reference.  I don't think we need to analyze poetry in depth with young children, but it is nice as an adult to have some sense of these categories and types.