LIVELY LIMERICKS

LIVELY LIMERICKS

Learning Description

In this lesson, students will use limericks to explore both language arts and music skills at the same time, focusing on rhythm and rhyme to delve into poetry!

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: 2-3
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & ELA
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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can speak limerick texts rhythmically.

  • I can create an original limerick text using appropriate form and rhyme scheme. 

  • I can add musical elements to my limerick.

  • I can identify and create rhyme schemes.

Essential Questions

  • How can limericks enhance musical literacy as well as creative writing skills?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 2: 

ELAGSE2RL4 Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.

 

ELAGSE2RL10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

 

ELAGSE2RF4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. 

  1. Read on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.

 

Grade 3: 

ELAGSE3RL4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases both literal and nonliteral language as they are used in the text.

 

ELAGSE3RL10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 2-3 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

 

ELAGSE3RF4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. 

  1. Read on-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.

Arts Standards

Grade 2:

ESGM2.CR.1 Improvise melodies, variations, and accompaniments.

 

ESGM2.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM2.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM2.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

Grade 3:

ESGM3.CR.1 Improvise melodies, variations, and accompaniments.

 

ESGM3.PR.2 Perform a varied repertoire of music on instruments, alone and with others.

 

ESGM3.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

ESGM3.CN.1 Connect music to the other fine arts and disciplines outside the arts.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Grade 2:

ELA.2.F.4.2 Read texts orally and silently with accuracy, appropriate rate, expression, and intonation. 

 

ELA.2.AOR.5.1 Describe the basic structure of a literary text (e.g., narrative, drama, and poem). 

 

Grade 3: 

ELA.3.F.4.2 Read a variety of texts orally and silently with accuracy, appropriate rate, expression, and intonation. 

 

ELA.3.AOR.8.1 Determine an author’s use of words and phrases in grade-level literary, informational, and multimedia texts: 

  1. distinguish between literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases (e.g., take steps)

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 2: I can improvise music.

 

Anchor Standard 4: I can play instruments alone and with others.

 

Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.

Anchor Standard 9: I can relate music to other arts disciplines, other subjects, and career paths.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

  • Limerick - A five-line poem with a strict form and humorous content 

 

  • Rhyme - The repetition of similar sounds

  • Rhythm - The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line or verse, creating a flow or beat
  • Rhyme scheme - The pattern of rhymes at the end of lines in a poem

Arts Vocabulary

  • Body Percussion - Sounds produced by striking or scraping parts of the body; typically includes snapping, clapping, patting, and stamping

  • Choral reading - Voices read together, using same rhythm, tempo, and expressive elements (as opposed to individual or small group reading)
  • Form - The structure of a composition; based on repetition, contrast, and variation
  • Found sound - Non-typical sound producers used as instruments (e.g., striking a desk with a pencil)
  • Unpitched percussion - Percussion instrument whose sound is typically produced by shaking, striking, or scraping and does not produce a specific pitch; includes shakers (maracas), drums (bongos, hand drums, congas), woods (claves, rhythm sticks, woodblocks, etc.), and metals (triangle, cowbell, finger cymbals)
  • Ostinato - A repeated pattern
  • Timbre - The quality of sound; component of a sound that causes different instruments to sound different from each other
  • Texture - Thickness or thinness of sound; impacted by the number and relationship of parts

 

Materials

  • Examples of limericks 
  • Various unpitched percussion instruments (can be found sound objects)
  • Pencil and paper

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

  • Display the following limerick and invite individual students to read it. 
  • Explore rhythmic and non-rhythmic options for reading the limerick.

There was an old man of Peru [a] 

Who dreamed he was eating his shoe. [a] 

He awoke in the night in a terrible fright,  [b] 

And found it was perfectly true. [a]

 

Work Session

  • Lead students to understanding of limericks’ salient features: Rhythmic text (words can be read in rhythm), form (four 4-beat phrases = 16 beats), rhyme scheme (a a b a; “b” section also includes an internal rhyme scheme), and nonsensical text. 
  • Explore various ways of keeping the beat while speaking the poem. 
  • Explore various ways of performing the limerick, such as solo versus choral reading, putting the rhythm of the words in body percussion, using different body percussion or voices for rhyming words, using unpitched percussion instruments or found sound to play the poem, etc.
    • Discuss how the texture and timbre changes in each version.
  • Try different variations on the limerick, such as:
    • Transfer speech to unpitched percussion or found sound.
    • Using words from the limerick, challenge students to create speech ostinato (e.g., shoe, shoe, the man ate his shoe).
  • Divide students into groups and challenge students to create original limericks.
    • Students should decide on a means of performing their original compositions incorporating speech, body percussion, and/or unpitched percussion.

 

Closing Reflection

  • Students will perform their limericks for the class. Discuss appropriate audience participation and etiquette prior to performances.
  • Audience should identify the rhyming words and rhyme scheme in the performances.

 

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, ability to identify elements of a limerick, ability to read a limerick rhythmically, ability to incorporate body percussion and unpitched instruments into reading performances, and collaboration with group members to create an original limerick.

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

  • Students can speak limerick text together rhythmically. 
  • Students can create original limerick texts using appropriate form and rhyme scheme. 
  • Students can add musical elements to their limericks (e.g., speech ostinato, body percussion ostinato, delineation of rhyming words, etc.).
  • Students can identify and create rhyme schemes.

 

DIFFERENTIATION 

Acceleration: 

  • Students create limericks incorporating other criteria, such as homophones or writing about a given topic, etc.
  • Students can write about compositional and performance experience. 
  • Students can create movement compositions illustrating the same form (for example, A A B A).

Remediation: 

  • Create a collaborative class limerick together rather than having students work in groups to create their own.
  • Create a class list of rhyming words for students to choose from when creating their limericks.
  • Rather than having students write a limerick, have individual groups perform prewritten limericks. Students should identify the rhyming words and rhyme scheme in the text.
  • During the performances, have the audience use body percussion to set the steady beat and have the performing group speak their limerick rhythmically giving them the option to participate with the body percussion the class has set.

 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Maribeth Yoder-White. Updated by: Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright: September 2024 @ ArtsNOW

 

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