Lesson #

Intro to Shel Silverstein Poetry Unit

Teach
er
Date
Time

Unit/Stra
nd

Poetry Shel Silverstein

Grade

Ria Beekman
April 13 15
80 min
6

CURRICULUM OUTCOMES
GLO:
Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to comprehend and respond
personally and critically to oral, print, and other media texts.
SLO:

2.3 Understand Forms, Elements and Techniques

Understand forms and genre
- Identify key characteristics of a variety of forms or genres of oral, print and other media
texts
2.4Create Original Text
Generate ideas
- Choose life themes encountered in reading, listening and viewing activities, and in own
experiences, for creating oral, print and other media texts
Structure Texts
- Determine purpose and audience needs to choose forms and organize ideas and details in
oral, print and other media texts

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
1. Tell me a bit about Shel Silverstein
2. Know the difference between a poem and a story
3. Know the difference between certain types of poems

ASSESSMENTS
Observations:
Key Questions:
Products/Performa
nces:

Observe students throughout the lesson. What do they seem to like

about poems?
What is a ________ poem? What is poetry? Who is Shel
Silverstein?
Worksheets

LEARNING RESOURCES
CONSULTED
Alberta Program of Studies LA 6
Pinterest; ShelSilverstein.com

MATERIALS AND
EQUIPMENT
Smart board slides
Worksheets
Youtube: Smart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=HOEVVH91Svc

PROCEDURE
Attention Grabber
Assessment of
Prior Knowledge
Advance
Organizer/Agenda
Transition to Body

Introduction
- Lets be ready to start in 5!
- What is a poem? What is the difference
between a poem and a story?
Prepare smartboard slides.
Print worksheets
Today we will be starting our Shel Silverstein Unit
Body

Time

1 min

Time

2
Learning Activity
#1

Assessments/
Differentiation:

Learning Activity
#2

Create a T-chart:
- Compare poems and stories.
- Poems:
o Usually rhyme
o Written in short phrases/verses
- Stories:
o Dont usually rhyme
o Paragraph form
o Tell a story
Introduce Shel Silverstein:
- Has anyone heard of Shel Silverstein before?
What do you know about him?
- Show a picture of him.
- He was an American poet and songwriter. He
grew up in Chicago. He was drafted into the
United States Army and he served Japan and
Korea. He always loved to draw and write
(ever since he was your age). He has written
many poems since.
- Introduce the students to some of his poems
(read/listen together with the class)!
o SMART Where the Sidewalk Ends
(Page 35)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=HOEVVH91Svc)
o JOEY- Where the Sidewalk Ends (pg
26)
o I MUST REMEMBER (page 15)
A: Pre-assess students knowledge of poems and
stories.
D: Students will receive examples to look at while
the different types of poems are explained so that
they can understand it. Some poems will be read by
myself while others will be show via youtube (at
times including images).
Discuss 3 Poems as a Class:
- Students will need felts/coloring pencils to
mark rhyming words, different definitions,
rhythm, etc
- Use the following poems:
o My Beard page 163 (WtSE)
Unusual words possibly because
he is not very educated; poor?
o The Toy Eater page 77 (Falling Up)
Hard consonants shows
aggression especially from the
childs point of view

15 min

20 min

Assessments/
Differentiation

Learning Activity
#3

Assessments/
Differentiation

Learning Activity #4

o Stone Telling page 147 (WtSE)

Doesnt rhyme Is it still a poem?
Yes because it has writing that is
imaginative and condensed,
words that have been chosen for
their sound and meaning, with
phrases that have a certain
pattern and rhythm.
o Two Boxes page 41 (WtSE)
Meter its the pattern of
stressed and unstressed syllables
in a poem
Read the poem stressing the
bold-faced words and then read it
stressing the non-bolded words
difference in meaning?
Which reading did you prefer? Do
you think that the meaning of a
poem changes if we stress
different syllables?
A: Observe students throughout the lesson. Do they
understand what types of things they can pick out?
Do they understand which words rhyme and when
the rhythm changes?
D: Ask different leveled questions to different
students. Ask questions in a simpler way for some
students to be able to understand what Im asking.
Journal Entries:
- Do an EXAMPLE of a journal entry with the
class.
- Tell students: It is important to be able
respond to any type of text and so throughout
our poetry unit Ill have you write journal
entries in response to certain poems.
- Read two poems to the class and ask them to
write what they thought of when they heard
the poem. Did it remind them of anything?
Did you think it was funny? Did it make
sense? Etc.
A: Collect these entries and check on what types of
things students filled in.
D: Go around the class and check in with students
who are not writing yet. Also, by doing an example
as a class the students have something to
reference.
Structure Physical Arrangement of words on
the page/white space
- The physical arrangement of a poem on the

15 min

20 min

Assessments/
Differentiation
CLOSURE:

Assessment of
Learning:
Feedback From
Students:
Feedback To
Students
Transition To Next
Lesson
What went well?
What changes
would you make in
your planning?

page tells a lot about a poem! If the poem is

written in the corner of a large white paper
you might feel like its a shy poem.
- Examples: Show some examples of poems
arranged in an interesting way and discuss
why they would be written like this.
o White space: My Beard page 163
o White space: Invention page 48
o Arrangement: The Worst page 130
Big animal, little poem, open
space
o Arrangement: Joey page 26
- ACTIVITY: Read a poem (Lazy Jane pg
87) to the class and ask the class to arrange
the words in a way that seems appropriate.
Explain why you arranged the poem like this.
(You may use as much or as little of the page
as you wish. When youre finished writing the
words you can add the girl.)
o Take a minute to think before you write!

o Hint: There is a picture of a girl on the

page.
A: Check in with students. There is no wrong
answer per se.
D: Help students understand why the poems are
displayed like they are. (Eg Lazy Jane)
EXIT SLIP:
- What did you learn about the structure of
poems today?
- Whats the difference between a poem and a
story?
- What did you like about todays class?
Closure

10 min

Time

Exit slip
Ask students what they enjoyed and what they
found hard to do.
Provide students with positive feedback throughout
the lesson and extend their thinking.
Please put your folders on my table and enjoy your
recess.
Reflections
This is going to be a fun unit! The students are excited about
Shel and they are all so very willing to participate in class.
We reviewed some things that we need to know about
poems today before we head into our unit. The way that

What have you

learned to improve
upon future
instruction?

Shel writes his poems and the topics that he writes about
definitely gain the attention of the grade 6 class. Smart for
example was a poem that I heard students talk about later
in the hallways. I know that this will be a unit that will
engage students and that will allow them to see the value
on poems. I also think that Harry Baker instilled an
appreciation for poems in the students. They realized that
poems have potential. I also really enjoy the fact that
students want to share the poems that they have made with
the rest of the class. I created an audience for them and I
asked them to respect others while they said their own
poems or one of Shels poems. I made sure that I engaged
the students in the lesson rather than having myself be the
only one to talk. Students were always willing to give their
opinion on a poem. I realized that when I show enthusiasm
for a poem and for Shels work it gets passed on to the
students.
By having smart board slides to go along with the lesson I
found that the lesson was more organized and flowed from
one idea to the next.
Every so often I had to quiet the students down and tell
them that I was waiting but if the discussion was on task I
would wait a minute or two before quieting them. At times
they needed to get rid of some ideas/excitement

6
EXIT SLIP

Name: ________________

1. What did you learn about the structure of poems today?

__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
2. Whats the difference between a poem and a story?
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
3. What did you like about todays class?
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

EXIT SLIP

Name: ________________

1. What did you learn about the structure of poems today?

__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
2. Whats the difference between a poem and a story?
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
3. What did you like about todays class?
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________