Teacher Tuesday: My Shadow

February 7, 2023 by Sally

Welcome to the second edition of Teacher Tuesday for 2023.

Last week I shared a unit of work for teaching Worse Things in upper primary classrooms. This week I wanted to share a favourite poem that you can share with classes of any age.

Choosing poetry for the classroom doesn’t have to be hard. There are lots and lots of wonderful collections and anthologies. But there are also a lot of poems in the public domain including one of my favourites: My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

First, listen to it read, with pictures of my shadow enjoying my local beach.

Feel free to use this video in your classroom – I’d love to know what your students think of the poem, my reading – and my amazing beach.

If you’d like a copy of the words, here they are:

My Shadow

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;

I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

What can you do with this poem? Lots of things! Read it aloud to your students – from the early years right through. It is a beautiful poem to read aloud, and fun to learn to recite, too.

But, after you’ve read it, why not link the poem to a science lesson – experimenting with the way that shadows are made by different light sources. Find out why shadows are sometimes bigger or smaller than the person or object. The Science Sparks website has some excellent ideas for classroom activities here.

Or, perhaps you want to use the poem as the inspiration for an art lesson. Have students draw around each other’s shadows, for a life size self-portrait. Use a lamp to make shadows of different sized objects and draw around them. Or, go outside and search for shadows.

If you want more poems and poetry ideas, you might find these older posts of mine useful:

How to Write a Metamorphosis Poem

An Easy Way to Write a Poem

Writing a Definition Poem

If you’ve used My Shadow, or have another wonderful poem or poetry idea, feel free to tell me about it in the comments. Otherwise, I’ll see you next Tuesday.

A Dog, a Book and a Dog in a Book

January 5, 2023 by Sally

If you follow this blog, or my social media accounts, you might have noticed that I love beaches and dogs almost as much as I love poetry. A couple of years ago I was walking on the beach when I snapped a photo of one of my favourite beach dogs, Flo. Soon afterwards, I posted that photo and a poem here on my blog in a Poetry Friday post. Then, last year, I included both the photo and the poem in my poetry book, Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose.

Although I told Flo’s owners of this, and have seen them lots of times since, it has always been on the beach and, of course, I didn’t have a copy with me. But this week, finally, I was able to present Flo and her lovely people with their very own copy. And here is Flo, admiring herself and her poem. Isn’t she lovely?

Poetry Friday: I’m Excited!

October 7, 2022 by Sally

It’s Poetry Friday and I’m excited.

Firstly, I’m excited because it is Friday and, instead of wishing I had time to put together a Poetry Friday post I am actually here doing it. Huzzah! Life has been chaotic this year, mostly good-chaotic, but this has not left as much time as I’d like for fun things like Poetry Friday. So I am glad to be here today.

Secondly, I am excited because my poetry book for teachers, Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose won an award! Taddah!

It was really lovely to hear that this resource, with lots of teaching ideas, background information and, of course poems – by myself and lots of other wonderful poets, took out this category. Hopefully this means it will end up being seen by more teachers keen to use poetry in their classrooms.

Lastly, I’m excited because today, George is coming!!! Who is George? Thanks for asking!

THIS is George:

And those are my arms holding him when I met him last Sunday. And today, George is coming to live with ME. And I am like a child in my excitement. There has been a dog-sized hole in my home since early last year, when my much loved Jonah died. George won’t replace him – you can’t replace a much loved family member. But now that I have had time, I am ready to love again – and boy is George loveable. He is as soft and silky as he looks, and those eyes are just adorable.

To celebrate these three things: Poetry Friday, the book award, and a brand new puppy, it’s appropriate to share a poem from the book which is about – of course – dogs. This is my Definition Poem (you can read more about those here) for the word ‘dog’.

Happy George Day! And happy Poetry Friday!

I’m off to visit my Poetry Friday friends while I wait for it to be George-time. You can find the Poetry Friday round up here on Sarah’s blog.

Poetry Friday: Winter is STILL Here

July 15, 2022 by Sally

It’s been over a month since my last Poetry Friday offering and, in that post I was complaining about the cold, and looking for reasons to LIKE winter.

Fast forward to today, and its cold and wet and wintry – and, you guessed it, I am still struggling to find good things about winter.

But, I do have a pair of haiku that I wrote about being cold – and trying to flip between the downsides of being cold and the upsides. Here it is:

Cold

Caught in the rain

Burning of frostbitten toes

Blades of wintry wind

A plunge in cold pool

Bubbling fizzing lemonade

Shivering lemonade.

(Copyright Sally Murphy)

Not sure this really counts as flipping the bad to the good – because I seem to be arguing that being cold is winter in bad, but being cold in summer is good. Can you tell I’m a summer person?

But, because I’m a contrary kind of person, I also have a pair of haiku about the pros and cons of being hot.

Hot

Sweat-drenched smelly socks

Suffocating in-school days

Unrelenting sun

Thawing spring sunshine

Steam rising from chocolate drink

Toasty slipper toes.

(Copyright Sally Murphy)

And you can see that I found the good things about being hot right in the midst of winter.

Incidentally, these ‘opposite haikus’ (as I call them) appeared in my book for teachers last year, and were written quite some time before that. It was only when I typed them up for this blog post that I noticed something in the syllable counts. If I’m sticking to a 5/7/5 syllable count for each haiku (and yes, I do know that true haiku do not have to adhere strictly to this count) – then the line about the chocolate drink is questionable. It depends on pronunciation – the dictionary tells me that it definitely has 3 syllables – choc-o-late – but I confess, when Is ay it it definitely comes out with only two – chock – let – which is how it is that I have never noticed this in my own poem before.

Does it matter? Probably not – although now that I’ve noticed it, it annoys me, because I’m a stickler for rules.

But being distracted by syllable counts has taken my mind of being cold. So that’s gotta be good thing, right?

I’m off to make a hot chocolate and browse the rest of the Poetry Friday posts. They always warm my heart. The Roundup is hosted by Elisabeth – you should check it out 🙂

Making Poetry a Pleasure

August 21, 2021 by Sally

One of my long standing goals as a poet and as an educator has been to find ways to get more poetry into the hands of hearts of Australian children. So, when I was approached by PETAA (the Primary English Teacher’s Association) to put together a resource for Australian teachers, I said yes. A very enthusiastic yes. A yes which I may have briefly regretted when I realised the very tight deadline – I was approached in February, and it needed to be finished by May.

But, in spite of a that super-tight deadline, I am really thrilled that this week PETAA members all over Australia (and some further afield) have received their member’s pack, with my little offering inside.

And, today, my own member’s pack arrived, plus a second parcel with more copies just for me.

Teaching Poetry for Pleasure and Purpose includes:

practical activities for teaching poetry across the primary school years, linked to the curriculum.
definitions and examples of key poetic terms and concepts
poems (of course) – some are by me, some are by other wonderful poets
lots of resource suggestions
an introduction by THE Jackie French. How good is that?

Oh – and something exciting for me is that some of own photos appear in the book – you can spot one in the image above – a photo of my beach!

Of course most exciting of all is the thought that teachers will find the book helpful for teaching poetry – and that kids will benefit from the pleasure of reading and writing poetry. If you are not a PETAA member, don’t worry – you can still buy the book direct from PETAA.

Poetry Friday: Rules rules rules

September 16, 2016 by Sally

It’s Poetry Friday and, after a few weeks’ absence, I am really happy to be posting again today.

Last Friday as an actual Poetry Friday for me. I spent the day at a conference where the focus was children’s poetry. The ALEA/ACMI State Conference in Melbourne was a wonderful event, with participants able to choose a poetry workshop or keynote for every single session. Magic. I was lucky to be invited to the conference to present a keynote on the importance of pleasure in poetry, and to then give a workshop.

I began the workshop by giving each participants two stickynotes: a heart shaped one (on which I asked them to write something they liked about poetry, or a line of poetry they loved) and a down arrow shaped one. On this second I asked them to write the thing they liked least about poetry. Sadly, I think lots of people found this one easier. the stickynotes were then stuck on the whiteboard – the hearts on a Poet-Tree and the arrows on a rubbish bin.

I brought the stickynotes home, and, as I looked at them on my desk, knew I needed to use them for something. What better than a found poem? So, here we have it: a poem about what teachers DON’T like about poetry.

So Many Rules!

Rules

So many rules

and forms

and different types.

Curriculum restricts

prohibits

limits

making kids frustrated

And me too!

Structures

and restrictions

and rules.

Hard haiku

ridiculous rhyme

limitations of vocabulary.

Skill heavy

makes it hard to teach.

Takes time to read

to understand

to connect.

Sometimes I can’t relate

to the words

and I hate being told

what a poem means

when I think something different.

Writing in rhyme can be boring

I don’t know what to write about!

Even if I had the ideas

I don’t have the technical ability:

I am terrible at writing poetry!

Boys want to write

about snot

the toilet

disgusting food –

and that’s just not poetry to me.

Poetry can be sad

and dry

and it’s filled with

rules

rules.

(Poem copyright Sally Murphy)

Sound negative? Actually, this was a really positive bunch of teachers, there to learn, to share because they recognised that poetry is important. Next week I’ll share a second poem – based on the things they liked about poetry. See you then.

In the meantime, this week’s Poetry Friday roundup is hosted by Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty.