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Activity:
Mountain Fiddler
Submitted By:
J. Shook
Grade:
6-8
Details:
Reece’s “Mountain Fiddler”: Poetry in the Classroom Middle School Lesson Plan By J. Shook, January 2007 Goals: Through a focused study of one of Reece’s poems, students increase their awareness of the beauty and power of poetry as a literary genre, and they become more familiar with a noteworthy author from their own geographical region. Objective: Students will be able to express verbally and in writing how the author uses meter, imagery, figurative language, and other writing techniques in “Mountain Fiddler” to convey ideas. Georgia Performance Standards: This lesson meets the following state standards: ELA8R1, ELA8R4, ELA8W2, ELA8LSV1, and ELA8LSV2. (The lesson could easily be customized for use in 6th or 7th grade.) Suggested Materials: A sample of “mountain fiddle” music (any folk-type fiddle music could work), a fiddle (if available), sketching paper (copier paper will do), old-time clothing or acting props (if available) Suggested Time: Sequence of learning activities lasts approximately 75 minutes, or could be extended into a two-day lesson. Assessment Methods: Student artistic response, small-group and whole-group discussion, student dramatization, journaling Learning Activities: 1.(10 min) Play sample of “mountain fiddle” music. While music plays, students free-write, jotting down any and all thoughts or images they associate with this type of music. Students then pair up and share their free-writing. Common images that crop up among multiple student pairs might be written on the board. 2.(15 min) Read “Mountain Fiddler” aloud once, and then again more slowly, stanza by stanza. Students listen carefully and then choose an idea or image from the poem to sketch. Allow time for student pairs to share their drawings, discussing ideas implicit in the artwork. Note: A whole-group discussion should follow the “think-pair-share” and could focus on the poem’s most obvious main ideas. 3.(10 min) Show the poem to students (an overhead or LCD projector may work best). As students follow along visually, read the poem again, this time clapping or snapping its rhythms to help students “see” how the poem’s meter reinforces its content. 4.(20 min) Students act out the poem. (To add dramatic effect, on the day before the lesson, suggest to students certain types of clothing or props appropriate for the poem which they might bring to class.) 5.(15 min) Students reflect on their individual and group involvement with the poem, giving special attention to their sensory experience with it. Some appropriate journaling questions are: What type of worldview might have been held by this poem’s author? Considering the author’s rural experience, why might he have chosen the art of “fiddling” as the poem’s subject matter? What particular ideas about mountain life is the author trying to convey? In what ways does this poem relate to your own life? (Many other critical-thinking and writing prompts are possible.) "Mountain Fiddler" Byron Herbert Reece I took my fiddle That sings and cries To a hill in the middle Of Paradise. I sat at the base Of a golden stone In that holy place To play alone. I tuned the strings And began to play, And a crowd of wings Were bent my way. A voice said Amid the stir: "We that were dead, O Fiddler, "With purest gold Are robed and shod, And we behold The face of God. "Our halls can show No thing so rude As your horsehair bow, Or your fiddlewood; "And yet can they So well entrance If you but play Then we must dance!"
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