Unit 2 Poems
Period 1 Warming up, Pre-reading & Reading
Teaching goals
1． Target language
a. Important words and phrases
Poem, poetry, recite, aspect, convey, nursery, rhyme, diamond, cottage, balloon, sparrow, tease, salty, endless, translate, nursery rhyme, take it easy, run out of, make up of
b. Important sentences
Which poem is about things that don’t make sense?
Poets use many different forms of poems to express themselves.
I hadn’t taken my eye off the ball.
We hadn’t taken it easy.
The poem is made up of five lines.
A lot of Tang poetry has been translated into English. The translations have a free form that English people like to copy.
2. Ability goals
a. Enable Ss to talk about different types of poems: nursery rhymes; list poems; cinquain,; haiku; Tang poems
b. Enable Ss to talk about different purposes of writing poems.
c. Understand the main theme of each poem.
d. Enable Ss to chant some of their favorite poems.
3. Learning ability
Enable Ss to distinguish different types of poems.
Teaching important points
1. Talk about five main types of poems.
2. Understand the main purpose of writing the poems.
Teaching difficult points
1. Find the rhythm of each poem.
2. Chant the poem.
3. Understand the main purpose of writing the poems.
Teaching methods
1. Skimming and scanning.
2. Asking-and –answering activity
3. Discussion
4. Chant
Teaching aids
Multimedia
Teaching procedures & ways
Step 1. Greetings
Step 2. Presentation
Ask Ss to think back and try to remember poems from their early childhood, either in Chinese or in English.
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Talk about some famous poets both home and abroad, either ancient ones or modern ones.
Brainstorming: What will you think of when we talk about the word “poem”?
Step 3. Warming up
Read the questions in this part, reminding Ss what they notice about the above poems.(e.g. they have a strong beat, or they have rhyme, or they play with words and sounds, or perhaps some of them are funny because they make no sense.)
Tell Ss that there are many reasons why people write poetry. Give the examples on the Bb. Ask Ss why they think the poets wrote the poems they have just recited.. Write their suggestions on the board.
Give Ss a time limit of a few minutes. Divide the class into groups of four to discuss the purpose of writing poems. Ask one person from each group to read their group’s list and add their suggestions to the list on the board. (Suggested reasons: to create certain feelings or images in the reader; to share a feeling or experience; to describe something in detail or give an impression; to get the reader to think about an idea; to express a point of view; to make the reader experience the sight, sounds, smells, feel and tastes of something; to create a mood, to play with words--- their sounds, rhyme and rhythm.)
If time permits, in small groups or as a class, discuss the kinds of topics that poets write about.( people, animals, nature, landscapes, the sea, the seasons, stories, death, war, youth and old age, feeling and experiences, emotions like love, hate, sadness, regret and desire, etc.)
Step 4. Pre-reading
People from different countries write different kinds of poems. Get Ss to discuss the questions on Page 9 with their partners: Do you have a favorite poem in Chinese? Why ? Do you have a favorite poem in English? Why?
As to exercise 2, give Ss practice in an important reading skill: scanning a text, that is, looking through a text quickly to find specific information. Read the table in exercise 2 with the Ss. Tell them that they are going to look for the information in the table, just in the poems themselves, not in the other parts of the text. They are to look only for those pieces of information and not read every word. Do an example with them.
Suggested answers to exercise 2:
Which poem
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
describes a person?
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tells a story?
√
describes an aspect of a season?
√
√
√
is about sport?
√
is about things that don’t make sense?
√
is recited to a baby?
√
describes a river scene?
√
has rhyming words at the end of lines?
√
√
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repeats words or phrases?
√
√
√
Step 5. Reading
Scanning
Get the Ss to read the passage quickly and accurately and meanwhile help the Ss to form a good habit of reading. Teacher gives Ss a couple of minutes to look through the whole passage. Tell them to read the text silently and then ask some detailed questions about the text on the slide show . Teacher should encourage Ss to express their ideas.
Q1. Why do people write poetry?
Q2. How many forms of poems are mentioned in the passage? What are they?
Q3. What does “nursery rhyme” mean? Why do they delight small children?
Q4. What’s the characteristic of “list poems”? What about “cinquain”?
Q5. Why do English People like “Haiku”?
Q6. Are you familiar with Tang Poems? Do you know the title of the last poem in the text?
Listening
Before Ss read the text, have them close their books and listen to the text with their eyes closed. This gives Ss the opportunity to listen to the sounds or “music” of the poems before reading them in detail. Tell them that it doesn’t matter if they don’t understand every word.
First reading
Get Ss to read the text carefully, finding the one sentence that sums up the paragraph of each part.. Underline the topic sentence.
Second reading
Tell Ss that they are going to look at the rhythm of two of the poems. Make sure they know what rhythm is. Read the limerick aloud and have Ss listen for the strong beats. Then have them clap the strong beats as you read. Mark the strong beats on the limerick on the board.
There was an old man with a beard
Who said “it is just as I feared”.
“Four insects and then
Two birds and a hen
Have all made a home in my beard”.
Now read the poem A & B. Ask them to mark the strong beats on the two poems that have a strong rhythm. Check their answers . Then play the tape and get them to clap to the strong beats in those two poems.
Third reading
Just as any scene can serve as the subject of a painting, so any part of daily life can provide material for a poem.. Of course, the choice that the artist or poet makes relates to his or her purpose. Poetry is usually short and compact, so it should be read several times, preferably aloud, to appreciate its meaning. Read the last poem (Poem H), and answer the following questions:
Q1. What parts of the poem suggest that the woman loves her husband?
Q2. How do you understand the sentence” Should the journeyer return, this stone
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would utter speech.”? Explain the sentence in your own words.
Q3. What picture do you have in your mind when you read the above sentences?
Q4. Do you know the Chinese title of this poem? Do you know the Chinese version of the poem?
Step 6. Make a short summary of this period.
Homework
1. Surf some websites to find out more information about poets.
2. Review the content of the reading passage.
3. Finish the exercises on Page 12& 13.
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