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Unit 4
Reading Poetry
OBJECTIVES
Listen and respond to poems.
Identify how meaning is conveyed through word choice.
Read poetry fluently.
Connect ideas and themes across texts.
Model Fluent Reading
Tell students that this poem celebrates the uniqueness of every person. As you read "Me" aloud, have students picture themselves. Use a voice that is full of wonder and celebration.
Discuss the Poem "Me With apologies to joyce Kilmer ("Trees")"
1 Tone • Inferential
How does the speaker feel about herself?
Possible responses: She feels that she is special. She feels happy to be herself.
2 Compare and Contrast
• Inferential
How are "you," the reader, like the "me" in the poem?
Possible response: Just as special and unique as the speaker.
Rhyme
Remind students that rhyme is two or more words that have the same ending sound. Have students supply examples. Then explain that a poet sometimes builds a poem out of pairs of rhyming lines, which are called couplets. Have students identify the rhymes in each of the couplets in "Me."
EXTEND SKILLS
Model Fluent Reading
Point out the repetition of the word I'm in "By Myself." Explain to students that repetition in a poem can pull the reader along and cause him or her to read too fast. Tell students that as you read, you are going to concentrate on using a slower rate. Then read the poem aloud.
Discuss the Poem "BY MYSELF"
1 Generalize • Inferential
What happens when the speaker is by herself?
She closes her eyes and imagines that she is all kinds of different things, that she is anything she cares to be.
2 Details • Literal
What happens when the speaker opens her eyes?
She becomes herself again.
UNIT 4
Poetry
BY MYSELF
by Eloise Greenfield
Me, with apologies to Joyce Kilmer ("Trees")
I think that I will never see,
another person just like me.
So many kinds of folks I see,
but only I can be a ME.
Who walks and talks my special way,
and plays the games I choose to play.
Someone who thinks the thoughts I think,
and drinks the drinks I like to drink.
Someone who has my color hair,
and picks the kind of clothes I wear.
by Karen Jo Shapiro
When I’m by myself
And I close my eyes
I’m a twin
I’m a dimple in a chin
I’m a room full of toys
I’m a squeaky noise
I’m a gospel song
I’m a gong
I’m a leaf turning red
I’m a loaf of brown bread
I’m a whatever I want to be
An anything I care to be
And when I open my eyes
What I care to be
Is me
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Practice Fluent Reading
Have partners take turns reading "Me" aloud. Before they begin, have them discuss the main feeling, or emotion, expressed in the poem. For example, does it express wonder, joy, pride, love, or something else? Then have students attempt to show this feeling as they read. After students finish, have them listen to the AudioText of the poem. What emotion does the reader express? Does it echo the one they tried to express in their own readings?
Audio CD
AudioText
WRITING POETRY
Have students write their own poems modeled on "By Myself." Students can use that poem's first two and last five lines, and then supply their own endings to lines 2–10. When students have finished, invite them to read their works aloud.