Poetry (for Life)

Lyrics

Verse I
When beautiful lyrics start to take form
At that very moment a poem is born
It’s like an emotion you feel in your chest
Sincere words you may find hard to express
But when we look under the hood to see what’s up
You’ll find some basic principles that make it up
It’s more than words that pour from your soul you see
There’s a couple of standard elements of poetry

The rhyme, for instance, is broken down
To a couple of word play styles that change the sound
What usually happens we see all the time
The words sound alike at the end of the lines
But it goes even deeper from there
There a variation in the styles of the rhymes that we hear
There’s perfect and off rhymes, but we can break it down more
So much in store, let’s take our time

Chorus
Just give me poetry, for life
All I need is that beat, for life
Let’s go, come along with me
Let’s go, come along with me

Verse II
Rhyme means “sounds agree”
So in perfect or off rhymes this is always the key
Perfect means the syllables sound exactly the same
And the rhyme is responsible
In other words to rhyme “time” while using a perfect rhyme
Then I might use “mime”
Perfect cause the both have “-ime”
Their endings are exactly the same so the sound is sublime

Off rhymes are really close too
They’re imperfect, or half the same, all the way through
For instance you could say, I’m on a “streak”
And I could imperfectly rhyme that with the way that I “teach”
So now let’s discuss rhythm
The meter is the tone of the words and the stress that you give them
And then there are the feet
The iamb, the trochee, the anapest, and dactyl get a beat

Chorus

Verse III
When discussing feet, there’s nothing to it
The other name for these is a poetic unit
The iamb is the most used
A rising foot made of two syllables
With the stress moved to the second syllable
The anapest is the same
Expect there’s three in a row, with the stressing on the third one
The trochee is a falling foot with the accent in the front

And the dactyl’s like the trochee
You still put a stress on the first syllable, but there’s three
So what kind of poem will you write?
There are so many forms
And nobody else can tell you what to like
A ballad basically tells a story
And a haiku is 17 syllables, not wordy
Or a cinquain has 5 lines
A limerick has 5 lines, too, but it’s meant to be cute

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Description

“Poetry (For Life)” helps students learn the elements of poetry through song and how to write poems by teaching through music, rhyme, and repetition. Elements including rhyme and rhythm, including meter and feet (iamb, trochee, anapest, and dactyl). The teaching materials at the bottom of the page, including poetry lesson plans and worksheets, help teachers and homeschool parents generate teaching ideas for the song's topics.

This hip-hop song is suitable for teaching poems to advanced elementary school students (3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade), middle school, high school, and home school.

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Related Reading and Activities

Reading

Harris Middle School
Introduction to Poetic Writing
This site is an overview of the process of writing a poem.

Lesson Plans & Activities

AtoZTeacherstuff.com
Appreciating Poetry
This activity teaches students to synthesize and interpret poems using artwork.
Grades 3-5, 6-8

Introduction to Poetry
This classroom activity compares music to poetry, and encourages students to think creatively and freely about what poems are.
Grades 6-8

Eduref.org
Knowing Ourselves and Others Through Poetry
Students are asked to identify their current moods, and then translate those feelings into a biographical poem.
Grades 6-12

Performing Poetry
This lesson plan includes several activity ideas, including having students perform poems for each other.
Grades 7-12

Poetry Cubes
Teachers give students cubes with a poem written on each side. Then the students choose a poem to interpret for the class.
Grades 2-8

Step Up to the Plate Poetry
This activity asks students to research the Negro Baseball League, to read “Casey at the Bat” and other famous poems, and then write their own poem expressing their feelings about this historic entity.
Grades 5-8

Educationworld.com
Comparing Two Poe Classics
This activity asks students to use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast two Edgar Allan Poe classics. This activity can be easily altered using other authors.
Grades 6-8, 9-12

Poetry Shopping Spree
Students “shop” for poems that provide examples of literary elements/devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, imagery, or onomatopoeia.
Grades 6-8, 9-12

Harris Middle School
The “Art” of Poetry
This activity asks students to illustrate their best poem on the sidewalk using chalk. This can be done outside.
Grades 3-8

Famous Poems, and Poets, Poems: Far and Near: A World of Words
Though this classroom activity was designed for a specific school district, it can be applied using any state’s standards. Teachers are to design a poetry scavenger hunt using their required poems. Though adaptable to all grades, this is probably best for Grades 5-12.

Free Verse
This activity describes free verse poetry, and gives students prompts for writing their own.
Grades 6-12

Haiku
This activity teaches students about haikus and gives examples. Students are then asked to write their own.
Grades 4-12

Imagery
Students are asked to identify imagery within a poem, and then to write their own poems using creative imagery.
Grades 3-12

Limerick
This lesson plan describes limericks, and then has several activities including snapping the rhythm of a limerick and filling in pieces of one that’s partially written.
Grades 3-12

Nytimes.com
Poetry
This website has activity ideas and lesson plans, as well as links to other resources about poetry.
Grades 6-12

Pete’s PowerPoint Station
Poetry
This website has powerpoints, lesson plans, activities, examples of poems, quizzes and links to other resources about poetry. Interesting site for all grades

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State Standards

State standards listed here are representative of school standards across the United States.

California

2nd Grade
Literary Response and Analysis 3.4 - Identify the use of rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration in poetry.

3rd Grade
Literary Response and Analysis 3.1 - Distinguish common forms of literature (e.g., poetry, drama, fiction, nonfiction).
Listening and Speaking Strategies 1.9 - Read prose and poetry aloud with fluency, rhythm, and pace, using appropriate intonation and vocal patterns to emphasize important passages of the text being read.

5th Grade
Literary Response and Analysis 3.1 - Identify and analyze the characteristics of poetry, drama, fiction, explain the appropriateness of the literary forms chosen by an author for a specific purpose.

6th Grade
Literary Response and Analysis 3.4 - Define how tone or meaning is conveyed in poetry through word choice, figurative language, sentence structure, line length, punctuation, rhythm, repetition, and rhyme.

8th Grade
Literary Response and Analysis 3.1 - Determine and articulate the relationship between the purposes and different forms of poetry (e.g., ballad, lyric, couplet, epic, elegy, ode, sonnet).

Florida

2nd-3rd Grades
LA.2.1.4.3 - Decode phonetically regular one-syllable and multi-syllable words in isolation and in context;
LA.3.2.1.1 - Understand the distinguishing features among the common forms of literature (e.g., poetry, prose, fiction, drama).

6th Grade
LA.6.2.1.1 - Identify characteristics of various genres (e.g., poetry, fiction, short story, dramatic literature) as forms with distinct characteristics and purposes
LA.6.2.1.10 - Use interest and recommendation of others to select a balance of age and ability appropriate fiction materials to read (e.g., novels, historical fiction, mythology, poetry) to expand the core foundation of knowledge necessary to function as a fully literate member of a shared culture.

7th Grade
LA.7.2.1.3 - Locate various literary devices (e.g., sound, meter, figurative and descriptive language), graphics, and structure and analyze how they contribute to mood and meaning in poetry.

9th-10th Grades
LA.910.2.1.3 - Explain how meaning is enhanced through various features of poetry, including sound (e.g., rhythm, repetition, alliteration, consonance, assonance), structure (e.g., meter, rhyme scheme), and graphic elements (e.g., line length, punctuation, word position).

11th-12th Grades
LA.1112.2.1.3 - Analyze, compare, evaluate, and interpret poetry for the effects of various literary devices, graphics, structure, and
theme to convey mood, meaning, and aesthetic qualities.

Illinois

3rd Grade
3.C.1a - Write for a variety of purposes including description, information, explanation, persuasion and narration.

4th-6th Grades
3.C.2a - Write for a variety of purposes and for specified audiences in a variety of forms including narrative (e.g., fiction, autobiography), expository (e.g., reports, essays) and persuasive writings (e.g., editorials, advertisements).

7th-8th Grades
3.C.3a - Compose narrative, informative, and persuasive writings (e.g., in addition to previous writings, literature reviews, instructions, news articles, correspondence) for a specified audience.

9th-10th Grades
3.B.4a - Produce documents that exhibit a range of writing techniques appropriate to purpose and audience, with clarity of focus, logic of organization, appropriate elaboration and support and overall coherence.

Massachusetts

3rd-4th Grades
Standard 10: Genre - Distinguish among forms of literature (for example, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama).
Standard 14: Poetry - Identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the themes, structure, and elements of poetry and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Identify poetic elements (i.e.: rhyme, rhythm, repetition, sensory images). Identify terminology for structural elements of poems, i.e.: stanza and verse).

5th Grade
Standard 14: Poetry - Identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of themes, structure, and elements of poetry and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Identify and respond to effects of sound, figurative language, and
graphics in order to uncover meaning in poetry. Sound (alliteration and rhyme scheme; free verse; couplets; A,B,A,B). Figurative language (metaphor, simile) Graphics (capital letters).

New York

2nd-3rd Grades
Standard 2: Writing - use rhythm and rhyme to create short poems and songs, with assistance (Grade 3 is without assistance)
Standard 2: Listening - Identify the author’s use of repetition and rhyme.

6th Grade
Standard 2: Reading - Identify poetic elements, such as repetition, rhythm, and rhyming patterns, in order to interpret poetry, with assistance.
Standard 2: Listening - Recognize the use of literary devices, such as symbolism, personification, rhythm, and rhyme, in presentation of literary texts, and determine their impact on meaning.

7th-8th Grades
Standard 2: Reading - Identify poetic elements, such as repetition, rhythm, and rhyming patterns, in order to interpret poetry.
Standard 2: Listening - Identify how the poet’s use of repetition, rhythm, and rhyming patterns affects the listener’s interpretation of poetry, with assistance.
Standard 2: Speaking - use rhyme, rhythm, and repetition to create an emotional or aesthetic effect.

9th Grade, 11th Grade
Standard 2: Speaking - Use literary devices, such as volume, rate, rhyme, rhythm, and repetition, to create an emotional or aesthetic response.

Texas

1st-3rd Grades
b10a - Read fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including classic and contemporary works, for pleasure and/or information (1)
b5c - identify multisyllabic words by using common syllable patterns (1-3)
b1f - Identify musical elements of literary language, including its rhymes, repeated sounds, or instances of onomatopoeia (2-3)

4th-5th Grades
b12d - Recognize distinguishing features of genres, including biography, historical fiction, informational texts, and poetry (4-8)

6th-8th Grades
b4 - Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Poetry. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of poetry and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to explain how figurative language (e.g., personification, metaphors, similes, hyperbole) contributes to the meaning of a poem.
b4 - Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Poetry. Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of poetry and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze the importance of graphical elements (e.g., capital letters, line length, word position) on the meaning of a poem.
b12d - Recognize distinguishing features of genres, including biography, historical fiction, informational texts, and poetry (4-8)
bi - Poetic techniques (e.g., rhyme scheme, meter)

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