On Fridays with my 6th grade gifted kids, we unpack a poem. We discuss everything from form to figurative language, assign tone and theme, and write a poem in response. This is my favorite lesson of the week. The Promethean Board with the annotation tool makes it even better.
Yesterday we focused on Irene Latham’s spring poems. She posts a video each week designed for homeschoolers, but it works for me, too. This week we watched this video:
Using Irene’s Art Speak Padlet, we located the poems she highlighted and selected one to unpack. My first group chose “because every day is a symphony in spring.” So many things to see, imagery, personification, word choice, rhyme…
When yellow rings,
green cannot await
its return.As white fades
in discord,yellow rings.
Once againas purple, pink
Jaden, 6th grade
orange, and red
splash the fields.
When green season
arrives,the rainbow comes out
from every direction
and all around
you.Red triangles grow with yellow spots
on green string,orange sky falls
and the orange sky rises.Yellow lights
shine through the heavy white marshmallows,green spikes
poke out of the ground.The sky’s blue
falling down in may,with purple and pink petals
that have been waiting for
this season.Green season,
Katie, 6th grade
green season,
full of delight
and color.
Reflections on the Teche 