Poetry? Why or Not? An Assessment

3. Effects of sound -- The sound of the poem is evocative of action, words like BEHIND, JUMPED, SPIT, combining humor and active verbs.

4. Images -- The image makes the owl human, but part of nature; and an explanation for the natural world (rain) told in a way that children might think- cause and effect.

5. Emotions/Evocative, Alterative -- Teaches children that owls are wise, that nature is not meant to be captured; the poem is evocative and a journey.

6. Message -- a bit ecologic, owls part of nature, and not meant to be caught, but meant to be part of the world in which a child's imagination might inhabit.

Find and analyze TWO songs w/lyrics - these may be types or genre identified above, and/or holiday songs, hymns and spiritual songs, or patriotic. MAKE SURE THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT GENRE. How might you present these as poetry to children or teens? You don't need to write out the entire "poem" but provide enough examples from the two poems to indicate how you might convince the students that these are "cool."

Songs: Puff the Magic Dragon (Peter Paul and Mary); One Tin Soldier (Lambert and Potter)

"Puff the Magic Dragon," is a spiritual journey of maturation, full of pathos and emotion about a little boy who has an imaginary dragon friend until one day he is "too grown" up to visit the location."One Tin Soldier" is also an imaginary journey, one that takes the listener on both an anti-war and reality exposition that hits the audience on many levels (See Appendix A and B. For lyrics and links to song downloads).

Ironically, Puff has been recorded numerous times in numerous languages, and has a universal appeal, "One Tin Soldier," despite winning a Grammy Award has not been recorded as much, even though the message is as important today as it was in the 1960s and 1970s.

Both of these songs are wonderful thematic pieces that are thought provoking at any age; certainly, younger children can understand the basic outline of each story; one about growing older, one about war; but as older children and teens would be asked more detailed, psychological questions that relate to society and the individual: what happens to imagination, why is war futile, why do humans continue to fight wars if the result is always the same, what does Puff represent, what.....