The first oral poetic activity I facilitated with Sherran Pickering's Kindergarten/Grade 1 class was the composition of "Apple Poems."  This activity ran through two lessons.  During the first lesson, my class helped their Kindergarten/Grade 1 buddies to come up with words and phrases that described apples.  The K/1 students dictated the descriptive words and phrases to their big buddies, and the older students helped them to record their thoughts in writing on a large image of an apple (See "Apple Poems I" Gallery).  This exercise combined oral poetics, the K/1 students' oral improvisation of an apple poem, with rudimentary written poetics.  This lesson also introduced the K/1 class to the performance component of oral poetry in a fairly limited and "safe" setting; with only their grade 6/7 buddy, circulating teacher and myself as their "audience."  The environment no doubt contributed to their willingness to participate in this activity, as this K/1 may have found a larger audience overwhelming at this point in their oral poetic development.

In the second lesson, the grade 6/7 students helped their little buddies to utilize the descriptive words and phrases they had come up with in the previous lesson to compose a free verse poem titles Apples (See "Apple Poems II" Gallery).  The K/1 students used their own words and phrases to complete the Apples template that was provided to them.  The focus of this lesson, however, was not the composition of the poem but the performance of the poem.  Once the students had composed their poems, they had to perform them first for another buddy pair sitting near them and then for the entire class if they so desired.  Many K/1 students took the opportunity to perform for the entire class. With the help of their grade 6/7 buddies, the K/1 students were now comfortable enough to fully engage in oral poetics.

The following video documents the Apples performance process:

I followed the "Apple Poems" activity, which focused on the oral poetic composition and performances of the students in Sherran Pickering's K/1 class, with an "Apple Rap" activity which gave my grade 6/7 class a chance to perform for their buddy K/1 class.  My class was tasked with composing a song or rap about apples, which they would then perform for their little buddies.  I stressed the importance of keeping the content of their rap appropriate for their audience of five year-olds.  I reminded them that they would be performing for young children, and they would have to think of ways to engage their children in their performance.  At first, some of the students were reluctant to participate in the activity; they felt that the "apple" was juvenile subject matter.  As the students began to work on their raps, however, their interest in the prospect of performance increased and they became less self-conscious.  The students had approximately twenty minutes to compose their short raps.  I then gave the students about five minutes to rehearse the raps in their small groups.  After this small group rehearsal, we reconvened as a class.  The small groups assembled in a large circle and took turns performing their raps for each other.

This practice prepared the students for the impending performance for their K/1 buddies.  The rehearsal also served to increase the students' confidence in their ability to perform.  The performance occurred the day following the composition and rehearsal session.  Overall, the performance ran smoothly and was well received by the Kindergarten/Grade 1 class.  One group in particular did an excellent job at engaging the audience.  This group, comprised of Julia, Henry and Kevin; was able to deliver an audience appropriate, funny and thoughtful performance which included physical dramatic actions that helped to entertain the K/1 students.  The following is the transcribed text of the performance:

Rapple

By Julia, Henry and Kevin

 

My apple had a worm

Who always liked to squirm.

All the way through the term

He wiggled and jiggled.

We giggled and quiggled

It felt like we were being

Tickled.

 

The worm, the worm, who

Squirmed through the term

Had a sudden perm.

He looks funky and

Looks sweet,

He became a

Rapple treat.

But he died!

 

The worm that

Became a treat

And was digested

And that is the end of our

Rap beat.

The following video illustrates the effectiveness of their oral poetic performance to captivate their audience: