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Stopping by Woods

1/9/2013

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With snow on the playground outside, I did one of my favourite lessons/activities with my students today:  "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening".  Here's how I unpack this Robert Frost poem in my classroom:

First, I prepare envelopes, one per group, with a stanza from the poem in each envelope.  The stanza is cut up into individual lines.

Then, after reading the title of the poem and having a brief discussion about rhyming vs non-rhyming poetry, and reviewing what we've done to date in terms of poetry reading and writing, I pass out the envelopes, one to each group.  Students work collaboratively to guess the order of the lines in their stanza. They are asked to think about and explain their choices to their peers.

Next, I unveil the order of the first stanza, and we explore the rhyming pattern there (A-A-B-A).

Now students return to their group to make any changes to their predicted line order, based on the one completed stanza we just read together.

Finally, we unveil the remaining stanzas one by one, and the groups celebrate their success (most of them guess correctly by this point).  We also look at the rhyming pattern of the poem holistically (Frost uses the third line's non-rhyming sound from each stanza as the first, second and fourth lines of each subsequent stanza, except for the final one -- the students are amazed to discover such attention to detail), and ponder the meaning of the repeated final lines and pattern break of the last stanza of the poem.

Afterwards, I hand out fancy paper for the students to write their favourite stanza on in creative lettering; they LOVE it!

With so much political stress going on in teaching in Ontario right now, not to mention the trauma of not-yet completed Term One Report Cards looming over my head, I felt like it was a good time to just do a fun and engaging activity that introduces students to a great poet!
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    About Vera...

    Vera & her Sons, April 2021
    After writing for several teacher and multiple birth publications, including ETFO's Voice Magazine, Multiple Moments, and the Bulletwin, Vera turned her written attention to prolific blogging for some years, including BiB,  "Learn to Fly with Vera!"  and SMARTbansho .  Homeschooling 4 was her travel blog in Argentina.  She now spends more time on her Instagram (@schalgzeug_usw)  than her blog (pictures are worth a thousand words?!) 
    DISCLAIMER
    The views expressed on this blog are the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the perspectives of her family members or the position of her employer on the the issues she blogs about.  These posts are intended to share resources, document family life, and encourage critical thought on a variety of subjects.  They are not intended to cause harm to any individual or member of any group. By reading this blog and viewing this site, you agree to not hold Vera liable for any harm done by views expressed in this blog.
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Vera C. Teschow, OCT, M.Ed., MOT
Toronto, ON & St Peter's Harbour, PE
www.verateschow.ca 2021
Photos used under Creative Commons from Sean MacEntee, Studio Paars, Bengt Nyman, zeevveez, GoodNCrazy, CJS*64, Accretion Disc, CharlesLam, Courtney Dirks, CJS*64 "Man with a camera", Accretion Disc, Bobolink, Ian Muttoo, BioDivLibrary, Alaskan Dude, IsabelleAcatauassu, runran, Transformer18, jglsongs, Create For Animal Rights, david_shankbone, Paul J Coles, foilman, Newport Geographic, Photo Everywhere, kevin dooley, Claudio , Alex Guibord, Tscherno, f_mafra, Terry Madeley, musee de l'horlogerie, BobMacInnes, wwarby, jonathangarcia, amboo who?, chimothy27, Elin B, cliff1066™, Grzegorz Łobiński, Rennett Stowe, Farhill, Phil Manker, Guitarfool5931, airguy1988, dierk schaefer, Rob Stemple, katerha, StockMonkeys.com, Ramotionblog, andrewk3715, charlywkarl, AJC1, rachel_titiriga