Megan Pulley

EDU 3410 Poem Activity

Page 1

Who Has Seen the Wind?

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Megan Pulley

EDU 3410 Poem Activity

Page 2

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Length of time needed: 15-30 min.
SUBJECT & GRADE
NCDPI STANDARDS
Common Core
(Math/ELA)
Essential Standards
(AS NEEDED)

First Grade English Language Arts

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.3
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.3.A
Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.3.E
Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.

MATERIALS
RELATED
VOCABULARY AND
DEFINITIONS
OBJECTIVES
What will students be able to
do by the end of the lesson?
Develop 3-4 I can or The
learner will be able to
statements, which are guided
by your standards selected
above.
HOOK
What question or activity will
you begin with to get their
attention?

PRESENTATION OF
MATERIAL
Explain the concept and
show how it is done.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.3.G
Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
Copy of poem, Who Has Seen the Wind by Christina Rossetti.
Trembling to shake slightly because of some force
Neither not one or the other of two people or things
I can:

Read two-syllable words by breaking them into syllables.

Recognize and read irregular words (in this case question words: who, what,
where, when, etc.)
Use question words appropriately to complete a question.
Read words with the th sound and use them in context by completing a
sentence.
Begin with this Riddle:
Sometimes I am a gentle breeze
And other times Im a strong gust
On water I blow sailing ships
And in the desert I blow dust
**Answer is Wind.
INPUT
Today we are going to read a poem about the wind. First, I am going to read it to you and show
you the hand motions that go with it. Show poem using overhead projector. Read the poem
with motions. Explain definition of trembling.

There are two words that I want you to pay close attention to. One is a question word. Write
the word who on the white board. Can anyone remember how to say this word? It says
who, like the sound an owl makes. This word is a sight word. We want to be able to say sight
words just by looking at them. The word who is one of many other reporters question words.
Write the others on the board and read them to the students.
Here recently we have been looking at consonant digraphs. Remember that a digraph is when
two letters put together form one sound. Who can give me an example of a digraph? Does
anyone see a word in our poem that contains a digraph? Thats right, its the word neither.
Explain definition. Sound out the word. Now sound it out with me. Sound out the word again.
Who can tell me how many syllables this word has? Thats right two syllables. Lets clap it
out. Great job! You learned how to say this word by chunking the sounds in the word that you
already knew, then putting them together.

Megan Pulley

EDU 3410 Poem Activity

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Now I want us to read the poem and do the motions all together.

ACTIVITY
Get the students involved.
DO SOMETHING. Or
Make a visual representation
of the learning. PROVIDE
SPECIFIC AND DETAILED
STEPS. Monitor students as
they complete the activity.

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING & ENGAGEMENT

Students should read along and participate in hand/body movements as we read
together.
Interview Me Activity: Students will be given a worksheet where they have to fill in the
blank with the question word that matches the question. For example, ______ is your
birthday? The student should fill in the black with the word when. After students have
completed the worksheet, they will be put in pairs where they will use the list of questions to
interview each other. Each student will share one interesting fact about his/her partner with the
class.
Practice words with th sound: Students will be given a worksheet where they have to
complete the sentence with the correct word from the word bank. Each word in the word bank
has th in it. This activity will give students the opportunity to practice this sound in various
words, and place use them in the correct context.
I hope this lesson helped you understand why its important that we learn many
different reading strategies. Some words we have to learn as sight words and
memorize them, and others we have to learn by chunking them, learning our letter
blends and digraphs, and sounding them out.

CLOSURE
Restate the purpose of your
lesson, or have students
restate what they have
learned.
ASSESSMENT
Determine who understands
and who does not. Create a
rubric or checklist that
matches your standards and
objectives above.

You can see that just in this short poem you will see sight words as well as words to be
read using our phonics strategies.
Students will be informally assessed as their worksheets are reviewed, as well as through
observations while the lesson and activities are taking place.

Rationale for words chosen:

For the whole word part of the lesson I chose the word who. My rationale for
using this word is that I know that this word (along with all the other question words)
should be learned as a sight word through this approach. I also like that it occurs twice in
the poem, as well as in the title.
For the phonics skill part of the lesson, I chose the word neither. My
rationale for using this word is that it has more than one syllable, can be chunked or
sounded out, and contains the consonant digraph th. Also, I feel that this poem
provides a good context for helping students understand the meaning of the word and
how it should be used.
Rationale for poem chosen:

Megan Pulley

EDU 3410 Poem Activity

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My rationale for choosing the poem, Who Has Seen the Wind?, is that I
immediately remembered back to when I learned this poem in elementary school (I think
I was in first grade). I can even still remember the hand motions, so I decided to
incorporate those into the lesson as well. After reading the poem and reminiscing on my
early elementary school years, I began to look at the words in the poem to determine if
which words I would use. I found appropriate words with ease, so it seemed like it was
meant to be.
Reflection:
For me, this was a very interesting assignment. I can remember back to when I
learned poems in elementary school. I remember reciting them as a class in an attempt to
memorize them. I always enjoyed this, especially if the teacher taught us motions or
movements to go with the words. There is, however, one aspect to my personal
experience that is extremely different from what I did in this assignment. In this
assignment, the poem was used as a teaching tool. Yes, the poem was still fun to read and
had hand motions too, but what it also had was purpose. The poem was a means of
providing an example to show how those two chosen words are used in context. I really
enjoyed completing this assignment because it allowed me to view poems in a new, more
purposeful way.

Link to video: https://youtu.be/RXeTiupyeQ4

Personal Critique:
My first critique of my simulated lesson is that it went a little long. I feel that I
may have over-explained things when recording the lesson, which caused it to run long. I
think it would have been easier to be more brief if I were in a real classroom setting with
real students responding back to me. Of course, I noticed that I stumbled a few times
when talking and made a few mistakes, but I figure that is going to happen sometimes in
the real world of teaching.
I think I did well in attempting to engage my invisible students, and I think I did
an adequate job of teaching the words using each approach (whole-word and phonics
skill). I also feel that I chose appropriate activities to have the students complete
independently, and that I explained them well.
References:

Megan Pulley

EDU 3410 Poem Activity

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English Language Arts Standards Reading: Foundational Skills Grade 2 | Common

Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/2/
Heilman, A. W., Blair, T. R., & Rupley, W. H. (2002). Principles and practices of
teaching reading. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Question Words Structure ESL EFL Activities Worksheets Games. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.teach-this.com/resources/grammar/question-words-structure
Spellzone - the online English spelling resource. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.spellzone.com
Wind Riddles. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://riddles-for-kids.org/wind-riddles/