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A
Walk in the Park
Program
Area
This activity was written to contribute to the English poetry
portion of the Grade 9 language program. It has been designed
to be used in conjunction with Rhyme and Reason in the study of
basic poesy as a starting point for student poetry writing.
Learning
Outcomes
Teaching, learning and evaluation will focus on the student’s
ability to:
- Observe
and describe their surroundings in an outdoor setting;
- Record
their observations and feelings in written and visual form;
- Evaluate
the impact of humans on natural surroundings.
Classroom
Development
- Take
the class on a walk in a river valley or other park. Observe
and record the sights, sounds, smells, and touches of both natural
and human-made things along the route.
- Ask
students to find a place to sit alone (out of talking range
of others) for 5-10 min. During this time, they should record
their observations and their feelings. An easy way of getting
students to find a place alone is to ask one at a time to stay
behind at different places as the walk progresses.
- Back
in the classroom, students share their observations and their
rankings of these observations (see activity sheet) in small
groups.
- Students
write their impressions of this experience in prose form to
help develop their vocabulary. The easiest way for students
to get started on this writing is to list phrases and incomplete
sentences and then to organize these into complete sentences.
To turn this writing into poetry, they should break their sentences
into lines, remove any unnecessary words, and make use of description
and figurative language to produce vivid images.
- Use
a cooperative learning strategy to share ideas and improve on
this writing.
- Publish
all of the poems in a booklet to be given to all students in
the class. Students may wish to illustrate their poems before
they are published.
Timing
Allow 45 min for the walking and recording observations. Allow
20 min for sharing observations. Set a time limit for the writing
of phrases of approximately 15-20 min. This will force students
to get their ideas down on paper. Allow 10 min for sharing writing
in small groups and another 35 min for revising and producing
polished writing.
Resources
Rhyme and Reason (poetry anthology)
Cross-disciplinary
Links
Art/Photography—Students may want to illustrate their poems
by sketching impressions or taking photographs which captures
the mood of the poem.
Student
Worksheet
During your
walk through the park, find a place where you can sit alone and
observe and record below the sights, sounds, and smells you detect.
Record both the ones you like and the ones you don’t like.
In the bottom right box, write any feelings you may be experiencing.
Perhaps think about what you feel where you are sitting or about
what is under your feet. What emotions do you have as you look
and listen? When you have each box completed as fully as possible,
rank each item within each box from most desirable to least desirable.
When you return to the classroom, compare your list with those
of others in a small group.
Divide the
page into four and lable the sections Sights, sounds, Smells,
Feelings (Physical and Emotional)
.
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