Your next assignment is to “perform” a poem. I put that in quotations because I want to emphasize this point; you’re not just reading it, but you have to include emotion and power through your voice. This isn’t easily done and it will certainly take you outside your comfort zone.

As an example of the type of emotion and voice range you can/should attempt to develop in your poetry performance, listen to this video below focusing on the narrator’s use of voice. This copy here is for those of you who want to watch it as well.

Listening to poems performed: this website has many samples of people performing poetry to give examples of the rhythm, the emotion, the plays on sounds of words, the soft and loud, etc. You could listen to some as inspiration before your own recorded performance.

Practicing Speaking/Performing Poetry: 

Listen to Poetry website – listen to poems performed

Finding Your Own Poem: 

PoemHunter.com – many poems here of different topics so search through

If you’re stuck and looking for some options for poems to select from, here are a random selection that suit the assignment:
Note: I want you to avoid selecting a poem that has an audio recording with it of someone performing it. You need to decide and plan for yourself your interpretation of how this poem should be performed: the mood, the slow and fast parts, the emphasis on certain words or word sounds, etc.

The End of Science Fiction     Eric Dibs

On a Dying Earth: rhyming lines

More Dangerous Air: sarcastic play on waiting for the Atomic bomb to drop

Ritmo/Rhythm:girl makes music out of old things

Meeting Point: obscure meaning – challenging

The Cabin of Mystery: unknown who built a cabin in the woods Aleah & Ella 

Natasha and Houdini: a magician’s assistant reflects on how tough the job is

A Rhyme for Halloween: themed poem of happenings in fall (w narration audio to coach you) Van dibs

To the Dead in the Graveyard Underneath my Window: narrator questions why they aren’t haunting in death

Ghost: narrated by a ghost that haunts someone who doesn’t know they’re there   Dibs by Noah, Danny & Thea

Samhain: the season of fall when leaves can move, narrator encounters a spirit

All Souls: cute poem describing people dressed up in costumes at a party

A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp: a man mourning his love’s death plans to be reunited with her in the afterlife

The Witch has Told you a Story: sounds like Hansel and Gretel story – witch will make sister fatten up the brother so he’s good to eat!

If you were away this week for ELA A10:

• A3 Assignment: (Mon – Wed) We spent the majority of the week’s classes with students developing their written narrative stories that will be presented later next week. The students put the characteristics directed by the curriculum into categories for proposed rubrics; one for speaking and one for writing. They then voted on them and have picked their assessment rubrics. I’ll print them and share them soon. With your writing and plan for your presentation method, though, make sure you’ve covered and included all the following (see image).
  Note: I said you could pre-record your performance of your dramatic narrative, but you still have to plan for all the characteristics to be evaluated, like gestures, etc. Recording it in advance allows you more control over how polished your performance is, too.
• A4 The Raven (Thursday / Friday) – a world famous poem study! We’re going to study another title by Edgar Allen Poe, who also wrote “The Tell Tale Heart”. To start that discussion, I asked students to consider what’s possible through creativity and imagination. They worked in groups and identified both positive and negative things that have resulted from this.
  • We then started looking specifically at “The Raven” poem and I pointed out that Poe originally considered using an Owl as the center of the poem instead of a Raven. Students split into two halves of the room to research briefly the symbols associated with Owls vs those associated with Ravens. They shared their findings with the other group and all students wrote answers in. What we discovered is that both birds have symbolic qualities that would fit with Poe’s genre of dark, mysterious, unbalanced writing. We watched a video, too, of a Raven that’s been trained to speak; I asked the question of them and I’ll pose it to you…

    • if one bird can speak and the other cannot, how do you think that may limit a poem written focused on an Owl and how might it open possibilities for one based on a Raven?

  • Then we got to it! I had a 50 pack 0f Timbits I promised as a prize to the group that could re-assemble a stanza of a poem when given all the words to it and a description of the characteristics. Their words had to create a six line stanza, include internal rhyme in line 1, internal rhyme shared between lines 3 &4, and the end words of lines 2, 4,5 & 6 were all similar. They sure tried, but the bell went before anyone really got close!

Tried something new and fun today in #ela10. Gave each group a stanza of #theraven w/ words cut up #putitbacktogether pic.twitter.com/sEzjKkwZvS

— MWaldner (@MarcyWaldner) September 24, 2015