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| Overview |
 Once students experiment with poetry, they learn that they have another outlet for communicating their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. In this lesson,
students are asked to think about colors, while imagining what they taste, feel,
smell, sound, and look like. The students use their five senses as a prewriting
tool to guide their poetry writing. This lesson is open-ended enough that students
can write free-form poetry or follow a provided template to create a color poem.
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| From Theory to Practice |
In “Priming the Pump,” JoAnn Portalupi explains “A writer’s
eye takes in the surroundings with keen perception. Learning to ‘see’ means
stretching to use all five senses.” Portalupi encourages writers to “Stake
a claim on something—your
desk, the classroom, the lunchroom, your bedroom. Don’t just describe what
you see, but also include the sounds, smells, and feel of the place” (5).
Beyond simply expanding students’ perceptions to inform their writing, asking
students to include their senses in their writing through metaphor and simile
is a powerful way to learn more about their
inner thoughts.
Judith W. Steinbergh tells us that “Students’ use
of metaphor . . . reveals their individual ways of thinking about the world,
offering teachers and classmates entry into each student’s mind and vision” (324). “In
our minds,” Steinbergh explains, “we store the images we gather
from the time
we are born, vivid fragments rooted in the five senses: the
smell of mother’s milk, the texture of grandfather’s face, the
terror of trees in a night storm, the sound of sirens or dogs
barking sharply in the city, the smell of scallion and garlic sizzling
in a wok” (325). By tapping such memories and asking students to think
deeply in metaphorical ways, we ask students to connect the things they know
to expand their ways of looking at the world. As Steinbergh concludes, “Teachers’ guidance
in discussing
metaphors in literature and in creating metaphor in
original writing offers students a powerful tool that supports
their intellectual, emotional, and creative development” (331).
Further Reading
Dunning, Stephen and Stafford, William. Getting
the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1992.
Portalupi,
JoAnn. “Priming the Pump.” School
Talk 6.4 (July 2001): 4-5.
Steinbergh, Judith W. “Mastering
Metaphor through Poetry.” Language
Arts 76.4 (March 1999): 324-331.
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| Student Objectives |
Students will
- participate in a brainstorming activity using the five senses then draw
on their experiences with color to create poetry
- write color poems based on models from Hailstones and Halibut Bones by
Mary O'Neill
- connect personal knowledge and sensory perception to written descriptions
using similes and metaphor
- participate in process writing, from prewriting to drafting to revising
- showcase their poems and connect art to their writing
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| Instructional Plan |
Resources
Preparation
- Have a variety of physical examples of color available for the students. This could be a large box of crayons, or paint chips from the home improvement store.
- Gather sample poems to share with students such as those included in Mary
O'Neill's Hailstones
and Halibut Bones or those included in the Web Resources below.
- Make appropriate copies of the Color
Poem Template, Color Poem Examples, and Color Poem Assessment.
- This lesson assumes that students have a working knowledge of similes. If
not, please refer to the following lessons to set the stage: Figurative
Language Awards Ceremony.
- View additional poetry
links, if necessary, to ensure that they are appropriate for your students.
- Test the ReadWriteThink
Printing Press on your computers to familiarize yourself
with the tools and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can
download the plug-in from the technical
support page.
- Choose the templates that will work best for your students’ work—brochures,
flyers, or booklets. Adapt this lesson plan for the option you’ve chosen.
Instruction and Activities
Session One: Brainstorming
- Ask the students to think about their favorite color, asking, “How
would you describe what that color looks like to someone else?” You’ll
get varied responses, and maybe some frustrated responses, as it is difficult
to put a color into words. Some students might compare their color to a material
objective. For example, a student might say, “White is like the snow.”
- Ask students to add more details to their description by reminding students
that not everyone knows what snow looks like. Ask them to describe
their color further. This time, they might say that snow looks soft and fluffy,
but feels cold and crunchy.
- Have the students practicing describing colors in this way, by working with
a partner. Ask one partner to name
a color, and then ask the other partner has to describe it. Challenge the students
to avoid using material objects in their descriptions, but instead focus
on other sensory descriptions—texture, taste, sound, or smell. If a student
uses a visual comparison ("Yellow
is like the sun"), ask students to add details using
their other senses: "Yellow is burning, bright, and hot."
- To create partnerships, distribute one crayon to each student. Instruct students
to sit with other students who have the same color of crayon. This will be
their writing group for the color poem.
- Tell students that they will be writing
a poem about a color. They will write their poems as if they were describing
the color for a person who has never seen it before. Additionally, the person
may not know what certain objects look like so they cannot write about things
that “are” the
color. Instead, the students are to describe their color from each
of the other senses: sound, smell, taste, and feel.
- Share Color Poem Examples with students, asking them to identify
the different sounds,
smells, tastes, and textures used to describe the colors in each.
- Explore symbolism and imagery with students, explaining how the figures
of speech can be used in their poems. Play with symbolism using
this Dictionary
of Symbolism. Ask students to talk about the literal and
figurative meanings of chosen symbols. Or, complete a symbolism
mini-lesson to teach concretely about this poetic element. If
students need more exposure to imagery,
a mini-lesson on
the topic can be useful here too.
- Using the crayons/paint chips, ask students, individually or with
a partner, to choose the color to work with.
- Using their writer's notebooks, ask students to brainstorm, answering
the following questions:
List 1: What things LOOK (color)?
List 2: What things SOUND (color)?
List 3: What things SMELL (color)?
List 4: How does (color) FEEL?
List 5: What makes YOU FEEL (color)?
List 6: What things TASTE (color)?
List 7: What EXPERIENCES or IDEAS seem (color)?
List 8: Can you think of any (color) PLACES?
- Read the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones to the students.
- After you've finished the book, ask students what they noticed about
the color poems? After hearing the poems, ask if there is anything that
they want to add to their brainstorm list? Reinforce that the students
should have descriptive phrases written.
- After each poem, discuss the
author's use of imagery, personification, and unique expressions; the
senses the author uses to write about the color; and so forth.
- When students have completed their brainstorming, share several more
sample color poems with them (see linked poetry examples and booklist).
Ask students to pay attention to effective word choice.
Elicit student feedback regarding the comparisons of color the authors
used.
- Discuss the structure of the poems with students. Note that the poems
are not all formatted in the same way. This is important for the students
to know since their poems might not be following a specific format.
Session Two: Drafting
- Ask students to go back to their brainstorming list, selecting the
ideas that make the strongest comparison for each sense. Ask students to use
their ideas to draft each line of the color poem.
- To make the revision process easier, students can write their lines of poetry
on sentence strips, so they can be physically manipulated later. Demonstrate
how to revise poems by moving strips around easily, reading their poems aloud,
and seeing what the poem looks like without rewriting them on paper.
- If desired, the students can also use the templates provided as a color poem outline during the drafting stage.
- Model the process that the students will go through. Choose a crayon
or paint chip. Let’s say that it is called “Passionate Pink.”
Say aloud, “To me, when I see this color, I hear Gerbera
daisies singing in the wind.” Emphasize to the students that in reality,
you can’t hear Gerbera daisies, but to you, that is what you “hear” because
when you were little, you often sat on your grandmother’s porch, watching
the flowers blow in the breeze.
- Compose with the class an example of a color poem, such as the following:
Passionate Pink is …
Singing Gerbera daisies in terra cotta pots
Sugary cotton candy melting in my mouth
A freshly picked rose dripping with dew
- Once the process has been explored, answer any questions that students have.
Make connections between the templates and the examples available.
- Allow students the rest of the class session to work on their poems. Circulate
among students, answering questions and providing support as appropriate.
Session Three: Revising/Editing
- Once the poems are drafted, students can share their color poems with
their peers or writing partners.
- Pass out the Color Poem Assessment Form. As they read, ask reviewers
to check that each line describes the color through a different sense, that
limited visual comparisons have been used, and that similes are used in each
line. Reviewers can also make suggestions for stronger word choice as appropriate.
Ask students to record their comments and feedback on the form.
- Following peer review, ask students to assess their own work,
using the appropriate section of the Color Poem Assessment Form.
- If desired, you can discuss stanzas and line
breaks in poems, using What
Makes Poetry? Exploring Line Breaks, as a mini-lesson.
- Finally, students
should make any necessary revisions before writing a final copy of the poem.
Session Four: Publishing
- Provide supplies for students to publish their poems during the first half
of this class session.
- Demonstrate the Printing Press Student Interactive for students, showing the
pertinent options. Alternately, students to write their final copy of the
color poem in the same color ink as their topic and mounting it on poster
board or students can word process their poems and print using colored
ink.
- Ask students to print at least three copies of their work (one for themselves,
one for you to respond to, and one for the school or public library). If
class resources allow, additional copies can be made to share with interested
students in the class.
- This will be a busy, active session so ensure that students understand
the products they are to submit by the end of the class before releasing
them to work on their final copies in their groups.
- Allow students the remainder of the class to print copies of their own
pages for their booklets and flyers.
- If possible, schedule an additional class session where students can share
their brochures or flyers with the class.
Extensions
- On the poster board with their poems, students can add scraps of material
that match their topic color. Try to obtain a wide variety of textured
materials such as corduroy, silk, cotton, flannel, wallpaper samples, corrugated
paper, carpet samples, etc. This will provide a textured backing to enhance
their color poem.
- Share additional books about color poetry with students, such as Out
of the Blue: Poems About Color by Hiawyn
Oram and David McKee (Disney, 1993) or What Is Pink: A Poem About Colors by
Christina Rossetti and Judith Hoffman Corwin (HarperFestival,
2000).
Web Resources
- Have You Heard the Sound of . . . ?
http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/archive/sunkids4.htm
- This site provides student examples of poetry written by fourth graders
that focus on the sense of sound, asking readers if they have heard the sound
of blue, black, pink, and green.
- Color Poems
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Meadow/2184/Reading/ColorPoems/colors.html
- These examples of color poems written by children can be sung to the tune
of “Three Blind Mice.”
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- Color Poems
http://orchard.sbschools.net/users/pvandegraaf/colorpoems.htm
- This collection of nineteen color poems is modeled on O'Neill's Hailstones
and Halibut Bones.
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| Student Assessment/Reflections |
Monitor student progress during the lesson and as students work independently
through anecdotal notetaking and kidwatching. Look in particular for students’ ability
to connect to multiple senses and their connection of sensory images to words
in metaphor and simile. For more formal assessment, use the Color
Poem Assessment form, which is filled out by Peer reviewer, Writer and Teacher.
Finally, nothing is as useful as the feedback that students will receive by
sharing their color poems with their peers. Informal feedback from students who
read and review the poems is excellent for students.
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5 - Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
6 - Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
12 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
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