Earth Verse: Using Science in Poetry

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

This lesson is a great way to teach both scientific and English content to a class, although the teacher can easily choose another book and subject area. In this lesson, students listen to poems in the book Science Verse by Jon Scieszka. Students then create diamante, acrostic, or theme poems with illustrations. To help increase fluency, students read their poems to the class. Finally, students create original poems using facts they have learned in the current science curriculum.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

• Acrostic Poems: This tool helps students brainstorm and organize words that can be used in their own acrostic poems.
  
  
• Diamante Poems: This tool provides a template that students can easily fill out to complete an original diamante poem.
  
  
• Theme Poems: Students can use this tool to see examples of theme poems and create one of their own.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Parr, M., & Campbell, T. (2006). Poets in practice. The Reading Teacher, 60(1), 36–46.

• Teachers have to find a fun and interactive way to introduce poetry in the classroom.
  
  
• Teachers have to engage students in active poetry writing by creating safe, low-risk environments in which to share and experience poetry.

 

Spencer, B.H., & Guillaume, A.M. (2006). Integrating curriculum through the learning cycle: Content-based reading and vocabulary instruction. The Reading Teacher, 60(3), 206–219.

• Teachers should encourage students to engage, explore, develop, and apply new vocabulary through many hands-on activities.
  
  
• Word knowledge is incremental, multidimensional, interrelated, and has multiple meanings.
  
  
• By exploring new vocabulary through graphic organizers, poetry, and drawings, students increase comprehension in the content areas.
  
  
• Multiple exposures to words in different content give students opportunities to build background knowledge.

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