So much depends upon...

Mr. William Carlos Williams provided 7th graders with their first opportunity to write a poem.

The poem came in the form of a mimic poem. This type of poem allows students to create a poem with minimal thought. The basic is that they duplicate the original poem matching the same amount of syllables in each line and keeping one line of the original poem in the re-written one.

I began this lesson with asking students what poetry is

Then I showed them Mr. William's poem:

so much depends     

upon                  

a red wheel              

barrow                      

glazed with rain        

water                      

beside the white       

chickens

I then asked them if this was a poem

some said yes some said no

they of course had to explain their thinking!

We then dissected the poem going word by word examining the very existence of this so called poem.

They were then given the task of creating their own So much depends upon poem. 

They turned out pretty good...just as good as the original 

Here are a few samples:

The Big Black Steam ship

So much depends upon

A big black steamship

Sailing in the ocean

without a white blanket