Lesson Introduction
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.
Learning Objectives
In this lesson, students will have opportunities to:
- Examine rhythm and rhyme by reading published poems.
- Explore different types of poetry by creating diamante, acrostic, or theme poems using the book Science Verse.
- Increase science vocabulary and comprehension by creating poetry based on the current science curriculum.
- Improve fluency through repeated readings of poetry.
Materials and Resources
To teach this lesson, you will need:
- one or more copies of Science Verse by Jon Scieszka (Viking, 2004)
- index cards
- colored markers or pencils
- chart paper
- dictionaries and thesauruses
- copies of poems parodied in Science Verse (see Preparation, Step 2)
- printouts
- computers with Internet access (optional)
- 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.
Lesson provided by ReadWriteThink.org, a website developed by the International Reading Association and the N.C.T.E.