| Subject Areas |
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Literature and Language Arts
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Poetry |
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| Time Required |
| | Two 45-minute classes |
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| Skills |
| | Reading and analyzing poetry
Identifying and analyzing rhythm and meter
Developing listening skills
Illustrating a concept or idea
Comparing poetic forms
Recognizing poetic devices
Distinguishing between poetic techniques and devices
Writing poetry |
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| Additional Data |
| | Date Created: 07/12/02 |
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| Date Posted |
| | 7/12/2002 |
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Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense: A Little Nonsense
IntroductionBritish poet Edward Lear
(1812-1888) is widely recognized as the father of the limerick form of poetry
and is well known for his nonsense poems. In this lesson, which focuses on Lear's
nonsense poem "The Owl and the Pussy Cat," students learn about nonsense poetry
as well as the various poetic techniques and devices that poets use to help their
readers create a mental picture while reading or hearing poems. In
a related lesson,
Edward Lear, Limericks, and Nonsense: There Once Was…, students learn the
form of the limerick poem, practice finding the meter and rhyme schemes in various
Lear limericks, and write their own limericks. Guiding Questions:Who
was Edward Lear and what types of poems did he write? What poetic devices and
figures of speech are characteristic of nonsense poems? Learning
ObjectivesAfter completing the lessons in this unit,
students will be able to: - Recognize poetic devices, including
rhyme, syllabification, and meter.
- Recognize figures of speech, including
alliteration, onomatopoeia, and personification
- Comprehend the characteristics
of a nonsense poem.
- Write their own nonsense poems.
Preparing
to Teach this Lesson - Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark
suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out selected
documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
- Review
the following background information about Edward Lear, his work, and nonsense
verse:
Edward Lear (1812-1888) was an English landscape painter who became
widely known for writing nonsense verse and popularizing limericks. He remained,
however, primarily an artist and earned his living by drawing. Between 1832 and
1837, Lear came under the patronage of the Earl of Derby while creating illustrations
of the Earl's private menagerie. He subsequently produced A Book of Nonsense,
which is full of limericks and illustrations, for the Earl's grandchildren in
1846. (Sources: Drabble, Margaret and Stringer, Jenny. The Concise Oxford Companion
to English Literature. Oxford, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1990. Merriam
Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster,
Inc., 1995.)
For more information about Lear's life, see the Edward
Lear Chronology, available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website
Internet Public Library.
The 1861 version
of A Book of Nonsense
is available on the Edward Lear Home Page,
another link from Internet Public Library. (NOTE:
Lear's work is in the public domain.) Select a few limericks and illustrations
to print out and make copies for the students. Alternately, you can use a projection
device to display poems for the class. Recommended poems include: - Nonsense verse
is humorous or whimsical verse that contains absurd characters and actions. Frequently,
it also contains nonce words, which are evocative but essentially meaningless.
(Source: Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield, Mass.:
Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1995.) A nonce word is a word that is created for an instance
or occasion. An example of a poem containing nonce words is Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."
In this instance, some of the nonce words are portmanteau words, meaning they
are words formed by blending distinct words into new words. For example, "slithy"
is Carroll's combination of "slimy" and "lithe." The nonce words in nonsense poetry
always sound purposeful.
Suggested Activities
Download, copy, and distribute to students the Edward Lear nonsense poem The
Owl and the Pussy Cat, available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website
Internet Public Library. Or, post it for class
viewing using a projection device. Ask the class to comment on the illustration(s).
Read the poem aloud to the students, emphasizing the sing-song quality of the
stanzas. Introduce students to each of the following poetic devices: - Stanza:
A group of lines in a poem considered as a unit. Stanzas often function like paragraphs
in prose. Each stanza states and develops a single main idea.
- Couplet:
Two consecutive lines of poetry that work together.
- Alliteration: The
use of words with the same or similar beginning sounds, e.g., Peter Piper picked
a peck of pickled peppers.
- Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate
sounds, e.g., ding dong, boom, swish, gulp, etc.
- Personification: A literary
technique in which an author assigns human characteristics to inanimate things
or abstract ideas.
As a class, identify examples of each technique
in the poem. After the class has identified the literary devices in the
first poem, have students form groups to identify the devices in The
Broom, the Shovel, the Poker and the Tongs, also available via a link from
the EDSITEment resource Internet Public Library.
You may wish to divide the class into two teams and create a game of the
activity. See which team can find an example of each poetic device first and keep
score. You can repeat this game with many other nonsense poems that are available
at Edward Lear, Nonsense
Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets, accessible through the EDSITEment resource
Internet Public Library. Try any of the following:
- "The Duck and the Kangaroo"
- "The Daddy Long-Legs and the
Fly"
- "The Jumblies"
- "The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs"
- "Calico
Pie"
- "Mr. and Mrs. Spikky Sparrow"
- "The Table and the Chair"
In
groups or individually, have students prepare their own poems using some of the
poetic devices learned in this lesson. You may wish to have them create their
own alphabet poems modeled after Lear's. Divide the class into groups and assign
a block of letters to each group. Have the students compose alliterative poems
that include personification for each of their letters. They can also choose to
illustrate their poems. Compile a class book and make a copy for each student,
or display all of the poems (in alphabetical order) along a bulletin board or
wall. Selected EDSITEment Websites
Standards Alignment
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