POETRY LESSON:
NATURE WALKS
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Have students take a nature walk, find objects, draw them, and create poems about them.
Hook: Engage students about writing poems. Discuss what they have talked about so far. With younger students, perhaps they are only familiar with poems that rhyme, make a silly story, follow an acrostic pattern, or are written using their five senses. Discuss with students how they can write poems from their drawings or from observations.
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Purpose: Today, I want us to take a walk outside. Take a good look around. Listen. Look with your eyes. Touch things around you. Once you've taken a minute to take in what's around you, I want you to go towards something you see and find a small object that you can bring back into the classroom. Nothing that you can't carry! Maybe a leaf or a flower or a wood chip. Hold it in your hand and think about it.
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If it happens to be rainy or the weather is not cooperating, I've attached a Sesame Street video of a nature walk. Have students watch this, pause it periodically, and prompt students to talk amongst themselves about what they see. Have students pick one thing from the video to draw and write about.​
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Brainstorm: Call the whole class back together on the carpet. Allow students to talk amongst themselves with a partner or with a small group*. Students can share with one another what small object they chose and why. It's important for all students to have the opportunity to share.
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*I love having my students "Turn-and-Talk" during lessons. This allows every student the ability to talk out loud to someone and for every student to contribute an idea. Allow students a few minutes to turn and talk, and have them share their ideas in whole group. Try to get as many details as possible. As students share their ideas, write them down on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper displayed by the document camera onto the wall. Make sure students can see you create a list of all of their ideas.
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Encourage students to get their writer's notebooks, journals, or pieces of writing paper and begin drawing the object they see. Encourage students to add details and color to their picture so they really capture the small object they brought in from outside.
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It's important that you draw, too. Students need to see their teacher writing and drawing and participating in the lesson. This is one of the easiest ways for them to understand the purpose of the lesson. If they see you doing it, they know it's something important because you are investing your own time and effort to do it.
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Model: Draw your object in your own writer's notebook. Maybe even do this before students begin their own drawings. Label your paper with your object's name, and begin drawing. Think out loud as you do this. Add details. Make mistakes. Model behavior that your students would do, too, to let them know that this is acceptable and encouraged.
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Have students share their drawings within their small groups. Have them share the name of their object, the details they drew, and why. Students need to be so familiar with the object they chose so they will be ready to write about it.
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Model (continued): Start talking about how we can write about the objects we chose. Tell students to think about their object. If it could feel, what would it feel? If it had eyes, what has it seen? If you were to describe it in words, how would you do that? Encourage students to write and brainstorm, as long as their pencils are moving, that's exactly what you want.
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Model this yourself, first.
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If you are teaching this lesson to younger students, it is imperative to share, share , share. Poetry is new to almost all students, so it's so important for you to create what exactly you are looking for. If you want them to talk about what their small object could feel or could see, do this in your own writing.
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My Model Drawing:​
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My Model Writing:​
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