Poetry Friday -- Bracketology

Last Friday, we introduced the Battle of the Books to our 5th graders and showed them the tournament brackets that will be posted in the hallway.

Every 5th grader will enter a favorite book into the tournament by writing and presenting a summary of the book. This coming Friday, each of the four classes will vote the entries down to the 16 books that will enter the brackets. Competition will continue with head-to-head paragraphs about the books' main characters, the settings, key events in the stories, secondary characters, etc. The day before we leave for spring break, the entire grade level will vote for the overall winning book.

So tournament fever was in the air when we began Poetry Friday last week. One of my students made this bracket for his 16 favorite poems in David Elliott's In the Sea

The poem that wins the book for this student is

The Sea Turtle

Swims the seven seas
for thirty years,
then finds the beach
where she was born --
by magic, it appears.

How can she know to come upon
that far and sandy place?
Rare instruments of nature,
fair compass in a carapace.

© David Elliott, used by permission of the author



In his response to my request for permission to use this poem, David wrote, "...it's also my favorite poem in the book. One of the things I like about it is the juxtaposition of far and fair and how just the addition of one letter can change a word completely. I wish I could say that was a conscious decision on my part, but I'm not sure that it was. (Uh . . .can't remember.) Happy accidents can sometimes make a writer look much better than he is."

I got the "Bracketology" in the title of this post from Burkin and Yaris' post, "March Madness in the Classroom."

To try Bracketology in word study, check out this post at Thinking Stems.

Heidi has the roundup at my juicy little universe. Welcome back to Poetry Friday, Heidi!

Poetry Friday -- Tiger, Tiger

THE TYGER
by William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

We can never touch them, 

so we love them from afar; 

they are wild and distant -- 

the Tiger and the star. 

We can never know them; 

they are not what we are: 

fire, fire, burning bright -- 

the tiger and the star. 

by David Elliott

Have I mentioned recently how much I love teaching fourth grade, especially from February on? Well, I am and I do.

Earlier in the year, I shared Blake's "The Tyger" with my students, along with the way-cool video interpretation I first saw at Tabatha's blog, The Opposite of Indifference.

Our focus right now in Reading Workshop is "Reading to Learn." I decided to take a break from conferring and read alongside my students yesterday. I'm reading poetry to learn to be a better poet. I was sitting at a table with some students, reading David Elliott's IN THE WILD, and taking notes in my notebook when I came to his poem, "Tiger." I'm not sure why I never noticed it before, but I was struck by the way his poem made me think again about Blake's. (And I vowed that someday I, too, will write a poem that makes the reader think of a famous poem.)

S., whose favorite animal is the tiger, overheard me talking about the poem with N. (who tried a few dictionary poems with me in early April). He came over and told me about getting chills when he heard Blake's poem for the first time -- the part (and he quoted) "about 'Tyger, Tyger burning bright/in the forests of the night' " and also when he thought about the answer to the question of who made the tiger. 

Well, of course it was then MY turn to get chills. I had no idea that "The Tyger" had made such an impression on S. Even after only one exposure, he could quote parts of it. And he, too, loved how Elliott had made a slantwise reference to Blake in his poem.

Fourth grade at the end of the year -- it doesn't get much better than that.

Elaine has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Wild Rose Reader.