Students love this engaging Aesthetic Education Lesson which includes ELA Common Core Standards and Lincoln Center Education Core Concepts and Capacities.
The Wind Lesson Plan Summary
by Ms. Loreen E. Pearson
Work of Art: The Wind by James Reeves. The poem is introduced as a riddle with no title given. Students identify the title through studying specific details of the text and learn to make inferences.
Lesson 1: Close Reading of the Text. The goal is to teach students to read closely and critically in order to comprehend complex literary text. I actively engage students to search for meaning in the rich vocabulary and figurative language of this poem such as personification. The incidental bonus of this lesson is the students naturally memorize the poem and add it to their repertoire.
Lesson 2: Analysis and 3-D Visual Objects. “The Wind” by James Reeves is a poem that tells us what the wind can do. It can be both strong and gentle. Students identify and group 3-D visual objects into those two categories as represented in the lines and phrases from the poem. Students place objects on a red (strong) table or a blue (gentle) table. Time permitting, I help students connect to the poem through additional activities differentiated by grade level such as a movement activity for Primary grades and an essay for Intermediate grades.
Lesson 3: Art-making Activity, Reflection Collage, and Art Walk. To help students synthesize what they have learned, they individually create a poster to illustrate connections they have made with the poem. They draw the contrasting qualities of the wind with at least two evidences from the poem. I emphasize craftsmanship and detail. Every students shares out by creating a class reflection collage around which I conduct an art walk. Students reflect on their experiences by choosing which pieces they’d like to discuss and why.
LCE Core Concepts Used: Questioning, Art-making, Reflection and Contextual Information
The Wind Lesson Plan (Detail)
by Ms. Loreen E. Pearson
Learning Objective: The goal is to teach students to read closely and critically in order to comprehend complex literary text. In this lesson sequence, I use a variety of strategies to actively engage students in searching for meaning in the rich vocabulary and figurative language of a poem. Students learn to test inferences against specific details of the text, to analyze 3-D objects and to use those objects to more deeply understand the meaning of the poem. Discussion and an art making exercise help students to synthesize what they have learned. The incidental bonus of this lesson is the students will memorize the poem and add it to their repertoire. Explain the meaning and spelling of the word incidental.
Lesson 1: Close Reading of the Text
Most guesses fall into four different categories: 1) natural forces such as tornado, hurricane, tsunami 2) fantasy characters such as magical wizard, shape shifter, ghost, giant monster, Mother Nature, Hulk/Bruce Banner (which is actually an excellent guess because the Hulk can personify both qualities - strong and gentle) 3) animals and insects such as ants, rhino, whale 4) outside the box ideas such as a person dreaming, your imagination, God and seasons in and of themselves.
What do you think the title might be? What do you think this poem is about?
Line 1: How could you get through a doorway without a key? (Break it down, go under it, go through it, pick lock, bang on it until someone opens it, doggie door, robber, crowbar, open it yourself — maybe it’s not locked.)
Line 2: Show me with your hands how you might strip leaves from a branch. What could strip the leaves from a big tree? (carpenter ants— Tucson story, other animals, poison) It must be something or someone big and powerful.
Explore in depth the meaning of inference. Good readers do exactly what the class is doing right now. When faced with a hard or tricky text, good readers us the text to make a best guess or inference about meaning. They reread the text carefully, looking for words that show what they are thinking could be true. Good readers also notice when their inferences don’t make sense. They are not afraid to change their ideas. Compliment students who change their responses to align more closely with what they have read. Add new ideas to the list if a student is able to explain how the text supports the new inference. Ask, “What in the poem makes you think so? Tell me more.”
I teach this concept after line 2, when I relate my Tucson ant story and add ants to the guess bank.
Line 3: Show me what it means to drive storm clouds? (push, blow, cattle drive, computer drive, driving rain or force) When you drive a car, you make it move. What makes clouds move? (thermal atmosphere, jet stream, updraft from mountains). Show me what it means to shake tall towers? Ask students to describe or name tall towers that they visualize in their minds when they consider this text. (Twin Towers, Freedom Tower, Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Big Ben, Power Line Towers, Avengers Tower, Rapunzel’s Tower, Lego Tower, skyscrapers they’ve seen, tall buildings in their local area). The reason the discussion is more in depth is to help prepare students for their art making in Lesson 2 & 3.
Line 4: What does the word steal mean? Show me? When do you sneak things at home? (sneaky, steal home base, slippery, in shadows, silent, stealth, take something that doesn’t below to you) Sometimes a word can mean several different things. (Explain homophones and homographs.) You have to figure out through context what it means. In this case it means to sneak quietly through a garden like a thief. The second part of this line is tricky — “and not wake the flowers.” Do flowers really sleep? (some do — morning glory, hibiscus, some cactus blossoms, night flower in Idaho; some move with the sun — sunflowers) What do you think the author means by steal through a garden and not wake the flowers? (Do not disturb or trample.) Explain and explore personification.
Line 5: Sometimes the authors of poems put sentences together differently than we usually do. What would be the usual way of saying “seas I can move?” How about “ships I can sink?” (I can move seas. I can sink ships.) Why do you think Reeves chose to change the order of the words? (sound better, sound pretty, rhyme, syntax, pentameter, variety, interest, Yoda factor, what classroom teacher require)
Line 6: What is another name for house-top? Show me a rooftop. (roof; Wizard of Oz) What is strong enough to carry the roof of a house? (tornado, hurricane, microburst, tractor, forklift, crane) A scent is a smell and a pink is a kind of flower. It is a herbaceous Eurasian plant with sweet smelling pink or white flowers. It’s slender with typically gray-green leaves.
Line 7: What does it mean to rave and riot? (angry, rage, thrash about, yell, rant and rave) Imagine that you are angry. Without touching anyone, show with your body and face how you are feeling.
Line 8: Spent is another word with several meanings. (tired, wiped out, exhausted) How have you used the word spent in a sentence before? When you money is spent, you have used it up. In this sentence, it means you have used up all your energy. Show me what is might look like when you are spent.
Evaluate answers and compare against “guess” bank. Are there any guesses on the list that should be eliminated? Erase these. Are there some that now seem more likely than others? Put a star next to these. Are there any new possibilities we should add? Draw meaning from the context wherever possible.
Uncover the title
While there is more than one possible title that could make sense for this poem, it is now time to find out what the author intended to write about. If “The Wind” has not already been proposed as a possible title, take a few minutes to evaluate each line against this new information. Wrap up the lesson by exploring the question, According to the author of this poem, what are some things the wind can do? It can be both strong and gentle. Encourage students to summarize their basic understanding by paraphrasing the key details in this poem.
Vocabulary Word Definition
strip to take off
drive move
steal sneak
scent smell
pink flower
rave to be noisily angry
riot to be wild and out of control
spent finished
Lesson 2: Analysis and 3-D Visual Objects
“The Wind” by James Reeves is a poem that tells us what the wind can do. It can be both strong and gentle.
Once students correctly identify a line, help them group objects into 2 categories: rave and riot represented in red and quiet as quiet represented in blue. Prepare in advance red and blue butcher paper and red and blue signs with multiple, appropriate adjectives. Red table. Blue table.
Introduce students to Figurative Language. Literal language uses words directly according to their proper meaning. Figurative (or non-literal language) uses words in figures of speech such as a simile or a metaphor. In this poem, Reeves employs personification to help describe what the wind can do and how it behaves. Personification is the attribution of a human characteristic to inanimate objects or abstract concepts such as seasons and the weather.
Ask: Can the wind really be angry, can it rave & riot?
Strip the leaves
Drive storm-clouds
Shake tall towers
Seas move
Ships sink
Carry house-top
Can the wind really be tired, quiet as quiet?
Doorway without key
Garden not wake flowers
Scent of a pink
Additional Writing Activity for Advanced Classes: Students will write an essay based on the following — “The Wind” by James Reeves is a poem that tells us what the wind can do. Please complete the following.
Sometimes the wind is strong.
Sometimes the wind is gentle.
I like the wind when it is. . .
Lesson 3: Art-making Activity, Reflection Collage and Art Walk
Students will individually create a poster to illustrate imagery from the poem. They will draw the contrasting qualities of the wind (at least two evidences from the poem, one on each side). Encourage students to think deeply and add detail to their pictures that will help them evidence what they have created.
Students will first sketch all thoughts and connections to the WOA. Craftsmanship and detail are highly encouraged not on being “pretty” artists. This may be abstract. I layer the assignment. I might suggest (if not naturally done) students use words, even lines from the poem. Next, I might place a copy of the poem near their workspace as a point of reference or inspiration. When students are wrapping up their sketches, I then offer colored pencils, magic markers, and crayons.
Reflection Collage and Art Walk: Every student will share out with the class what they chose to illustrate. This will be done effectively and efficiently by creating a class reflection collage (pictures only placed) on butcher paper placed on the floor where I help conduct an art walk and discussion on those pieces that students choose to discuss.
Great lesson and analysis of the poem... thumbs up. Thank you much.
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