The Gift of Laughter

Learning Intention:

I am learning to experiment with descriptive and figurative language so that I can enrich my understanding of poetry and my poetic writing skills.

Success Criteria:

• I can identify the figurative language used in a poem
• I can create word clines based on specific concepts
• I can use my understanding of descriptive and figurative language to compose a poem

Essential knowledge:

Ensure students are familiar and confident with a range of figurative language, including onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes and imagery. NESA’s K-10 glossaryungroup can be used to review definitions.

Understanding text:

Read the text as a class, or if you have a digital subscription, you may wish to listen to the audio version. Discuss the way the author has created the idea of laughter being something physical that can be collected in a jar. Ask students to identify and explain any figurative language they can find that the author has used to achieve this. Answers should include:

• ‘I caught a peal of laughter’ (imagery) suggests that it is something physical that can be caught in one’s hand
• ‘It tinkled as it dropped from lips’ (onomatopoeia / imagery) creates a picture of the laughter falling out of someone’s mouth and making a particular delicate sound
• ‘It rippled in my hand’ (imagery) – creates the idea of laughter moving like water as it is being held
• ‘A cascade of gentle giggles’ (metaphor) creates the idea of laughter flowing like a waterfall
• ‘Moved with little wiggles’ (imagery) gives laughter a sense of movement
• ‘He hes, ha has and haw haws’ (onomatopoeia) bring the sound of laughter to life in the poem
• Laughter is such a precious gift (metaphor) suggests that it is something of value that can be given to others

Vocabulary

Using the language from the poem, collaboratively build a word clineungroup on the board. Explain to students that this should be created by scaling the words for laughter from weakest to strongest. Once completed, your word cline may look something like the following:

Chuckles -> giggles -> he hes -> chortles -> ha has -> guffaws -> haw haws

Ask students to think of any other words for laughter that could be added to the word cline. Answers may include:

• howl
• roar
• snicker
• snort
• cackle

Students should indicate where their suggestions should go on the word cline.

Break students into small groups and assign each group one of the following abstract nouns.

• Love
• Sadness
• Anger
• Excitement
• Fear
• Disgust
• Surprise

Give groups 5-10 minutes to create a word cline based on their assigned abstract noun using white boards. They should aim to include a minimum of eight words. Bring the class back together and have each group share their word cline. Give other students the opportunity to come up with other words that can be added to each word cline. Display them in the room for reference later in the lesson.

Creating text:

Inform students they will be composing their own poem about one of the concepts covered with the word clines. Alternatively, they may wish to come up with a related concept and create their own word cline to assist them. In composing their poem, they should include a variety of these words as well as figurative language. They may wish to continue the concept from the magazine text of making their abstract noun something physical that can be caught and held or they may prefer a completely different approach.

Model the process on the board by brainstorming an idea, building a word cline and composing a poem. An example of this may be:

Crying

Sad -> Whimper -> Teary ->Weep -> Sob -> Bawl -> Wail -> Howl

A storm of sadness sat upon me

Draped like a heavy cape

It caused a whimper to rise in my throat

Begging to escape

My bottom lip began to tremble

And my eyes became quite teary

I wept and sobbed with gusto

Until I felt rather weary

But still I bawled with more tears left

From my water well

Would the wailing ever stop?

It was becoming hard to tell

With one last howl it happened

Calm washed over me once more

My mind became much clearer

Just as it was before

Students should then brainstorm and compose their own poem.

Assessment for/as learning:

Have students read their poems out loud to a partner. They should then give each other feedback using the two stars and a wishungroup method, focusing on the use of figurative language and its effectiveness in the poem both in its meaning and how well it is incorporated into the text.