Rain Forest Poetry
I believe this lesson was successful because it allowed students to take some of their new Rain Forest knowledge and explore it creatively. As shown in the lesson plan, I asked students to use their Rain Forest knowledge in the poem. My students are quite used to writing poetry, but they never combined science with poetry in 2nd grade until this assignment. I used a checklist to help them organize their poem and to make sure they included some real information along with their descriptive language. I also encouraged students to only choose an organism for the poem that they knew something about. For this reason they were limited to organisms within their layer group. Some students finished their poems during that first writing period while others took longer to complete. At the end of the lesson every student had at least one line they were proud of to share. The edited poems are going up on the bulletin board alongside a pastel drawing of the animal by the student. If I were to do this lesson over again I would have students do more research before writing their poem. Some students could have done better work if they had more concrete information about their organism in front of them as they wrote.
Sample of Student Work
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| This poem shows a basic understanding of the assignment. The student used senses words, but did not follow the poem's format. She did not mention the layer of her organism, but she did discuss what it eats and who it fears. I could have pushed this student to choose a specific monkey to focus on rather then relying on her previous monkey knowledge. | In this poem the jaguar hunts its prey. The writer shows how the jaguar can move through the layers. The poet also follows the format well and uses many senses words. Her words are also very descriptive. I could have pushed this writer to describe more from the food chain and specify which layers the jaguar is moving through. | This poem tells a great deal about the toucan. The poet followed the format, used senses words and discussed the canopy layer. This student includes the toucan's eating habits too. The writer used colorful language to describe how the Toucan sounds and looks. I could have asked this student to place the Toucan within the food chain in her poem. |
Samples of the drawings
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| Both of these drawings show the organisms from different poems. | |