Something new... Poetry Time

We're trying something new this year...

Starting our day with some poetry.   We choose these two books, and Edward Lear for our first poet.

I'll keep you posted...so far, so good!

Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization from Institute for Excellence in Writing: A TOS Crew Review

Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization from Institute for Excellence in Writing

I have another favorite!  We have been exploring Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization from Institute for Excellence in Writing.  Once again, IEW has produced a must-have program to teach communication skills.
This set comes with ninety-six poems and speeches the poems and speeches read on CD for ease of memorization. The Teacher's Manual includes instructions, memory charts, certificates, and poet biographies, as well as a complementary Student Book as an e-book download (I was blessed with a spiral bound edition).
This set includes a bonus DVD of Andrew Pudewa's conference talk Nurturing Competent Communicators. (this is worth the cost of the program alone!) In addition - you get access to 7 audio MP3s as well: 

• Nuturing Competent Communicators
• Mastery Learning, Ability Development and Individualized Education
• Ten Thousand Times and Then Begins Understanding
• On Listening
• On Speaking
• On Reading
• On Writing

 This would make a great summer project for you.  You will learn and be encouraged!
Check out free samples of the manuals, listen to a poem,  and see a list of the poems included in the program here. 
This program can used with multiple children of multiple ages.  My testers ranged from 1st -12th grade. 
Once again, Andrew Pudewa teaches you how and why to teach your children.  This has been so fundamental to our homeschooling efforts.  Putting the effort in up front to learn the program myself, has yielded a bountiful harvest in my children!  This program is very easy to learn!  
"You can't get something out of a child's brain that isn't in there to begin with."  - A quote from the Teacher's Manual.  This is so very important!  If we want masterful communicators, we need to train them in masterful use of our language.  This is where poetry memorization plays a huge role. 
"....but, if we don't provide the content and opportunity for organized memorization kids will let popular culture be their teacher."  Poems are usually fun, easy to memorize, present excellent vocabulary skills and are actually building neurological connections in our children's brains! 
This program will take several years to complete start to finish.  They recommend starting at Level One and proceeding through the five levels in order.  Even though this was our first experience with this program - it was not our first focus on memorization.  I let my older children start at the level they were ready for...
The poems included are all carefully chosen, and you can always substitute with your own choices if you want. 
The Student Manual has copies of each of the poems, IEW graciously allows you to make copies for your immediate family.  Lower levels have a drawing on the poem's page that can be colored, if you choose.  The Appedix features brief biographies of the authors that you can use for introduction and discussion.  The CDs include audio recording of each poem. This is a great way to turn car time into memory time and provide the necessary repetition. 

The Teacher Manual outlines the process of poetry memorization, and gives you all the tools you need to teach this. "Graduation parties" for completion of each level are encouraged. This is a chance for your child to share his recitation with friends and family.
We had the perfect opportunity to show off some of the poems we had been working on at our end of the year celebration for our Co-op.  I was so very impressed with each of my testers!

Level 1 - Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rossetti  and The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

Level 2 - The Height of the Ridiculous by Oliver Wendell Holmes and 

Level 3 - O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

My older children all chose Shakespearean soliloquies to memorize and recite.  Hamlet, Juliet, Shylock and Macbeth.  Not only memorized, but delivered with style.

This is a wonderfully rich program.  It's not hard to include in what you are already doing, and it gives a very satisfying result.  I promise - you will enjoy this as much as your children!

Find Institute for Excellence in Writing  on Social Media:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/excellenceinwriting
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/iew  @IEW
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/iewriting
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/iewtv

Hashtags:  #hsreviews #readingreadiness #poetrymemorization

See what the other members of the Crew thought here

The Art of Poetry by Classic Academic Press : A TOS Crew Review

 The Art of Poetry by Classical Academic Press

From their website:

"If you have ever felt mystified by, or unable to enjoy the significance of poetry, this book will lead you step by step to understanding and love of this branch of literature, guided by a gifted poet and teacher. The Art of Poetry is an excellent middle school or high school curriculum; it will teach the practice of reading a poem slowly and carefully, introduce students to the elements of poetry (such as imagery and metaphor) and the many forms that can make a poem, from sonnet to open verse. In the belief that practice is the best way to learn, this book is rich with explications, exercises, and activities."


Take a peek inside:  The Art of Poetry (PDF)   & The Art of Poetry Teacher's Edition (PDF)
Free Resources:Art of Poetry Audio Files (MP3)
(Please note, the zipped file is over 200MB! and may take a long time to download, depending on your connection speed.)
The Art of Poetry Suggested Weekly Schedules (PDF)
 
The Art of Poetry Blog
 Check out Christine Perrin's The Art of Poetry blog!
Want to know more about author blogs? Click here to see an overview.

Cost -
The Art of Poetry Bundle - $124.95  New Price effective April 1, 2013 - $99.95
The Art of Poetry Student Book - $24.95
Teacher Edition - $29.95
DVD Set - $89.95  New Price effective April 1, 2013 - $69.95
(check out a sample video)

The Bentz Test Laboratory was SO excited to see The Art of Poetry!  I can't believe I just typed that...the transformation is complete - we are homeschoolers!

Seriously,  the Bentz Test Laboratory is filled with avid readers.  Understanding & appreciating poetry is one of the highest forms of reading, but - how on earth does your average mom delve deep into that topic, and make it interesting?  Classic Academic Press to the rescue (again...I love their products!)

The Art of Poetry is designed for your middle to high school student.  I just happened to have one of each! 

This course walks them through each step, carefully explaining the terminology and elements of poetry while teaching them to read carefully and discuss socratically.  Biographies of each poet are included as well.

My testers were open-minded to trying The Art of Poetry.  We jumped right in with Chapter one - Images.  I splurged and purchased the full DVD set (I know it's going to be well worth it from all my past experiences with products from Classic Academic Press)  The DVD sets the tone for the chapter, and models what discussing a poem looks like, plus you get a top-notch, passionate teacher!

It was nice to have both testers working on this together.  We broke it down to one piece of poetry a day, reading, discussing, and answering the questions.  This is much more than a "fill-in-the-blank" type of exercise,  it requires higher level thinking skills!  I already see the benefit to this careful exercise in other areas of study.   

The 16 chapters of the Student book guide them through:  The Elements of Poetry (images, metaphor, symbols, words, sound, rhythm, shape & tone), The Formal History of Poetry (history of form, movements, genres, Emily Dickinson & Walt Whitman case studies, and narrative poems),  & Application (starting a poetry group,  a favorite poem notebook, keeping a writer's journal, poetry slams and more.)  At the end of each chapter is a list of activities to complete to reinforce the lesson and practice what they have learned. 

We had fun with the activities in Chapter One - Images. One activity suggested was to take five minutes and freewrite about images from one of the four seasons.

One tester chose "summer images".  His included: baseball, lemonade, late sunsets, birthdays, board games, ribs & hamburgers cooked on the grill, Bible Bee.

The other tester chose "winter images". Including: sledding, hockey, snow football, winter gear, snow days, playing Christmas music on the piano, choosing Christmas trees, playing On to Bethlehem (check out this game), New Years Eve & our dog playing in the snow.

This was a wonderful peek into their minds and memories - definitely encouraging to this homeschool mom that I haven't "scarred" them too badly! 

The Teacher's Edition is a must-have.  It includes the full text of the Student Edition, plus answer key.  Not being a poetry whiz myself, it was extremely helpful to have the expert answer handy.  Quizzes are included - but, we opted to skip them.  I don't want to dampen their enthusiasm for this form of expression with a quiz...that's just my opinion.

We plan to continue the course - taking a long, scenic route over the next couple of years, savoring a bite at a time...

"There has never been a civilization without poetry. From the beginning of time, people have sought to turn their thoughts, feelings, and stories into memorable speech to share with others. Using language, the poet preserves something precious in the world by allowing us to live next to her, to see what she sees, to enter the experience she has built for us with her words and attention to the moment. Poetry acknowledges something deep within our nature – an urge to name, say, sing, grieve, praise, out of our solitariness, to another person. It makes words into a material thing, hard and solid as a table, dense with significance."
-from the Introduction

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