"A Thank You for Friends" Rodney Bennett

 A Thank You for Friends

There are all kinds of men
Who have done me good turns,
That I still never think about,
Not for a minute;
Yet if I were making up
That sort of grace,
They would all of them have
To be in it.

One man made up stories
Another wrote verses
I found, and I liked,
And I read till I knew them.
Another one saw
All the things they had written,
Then, being an artist,
He drew them.

Another took wood
And a saw and some glue,
And put each of them just
In the place that would need it —
So that is the chair
Where I sit with my book
And am so much at ease
As I read it.

I'm forgetting the one
Who read tale after tale
When I was too young
To know letter from letter,
And the other who taught me them,
Till in the end
I could read for myself —
Which was better.

by Rodney Bennett

Activities

1. Let's read it aloud in one go. Do not worry about words you may not understand. We'll deal with them later. By telling students IN ADVANCE that you will work on the unknown words later, you release their anxiety and, therefore, they can enjoy the poem. 

2. Let's discuss: what have his friends done? How has the poet received those actions? Why is it good to thank friends? You may write down their answers on the board so that those who might find it difficult to follow can relay on those notes :) 

3. Moving ideas: what about your friends? what have they done for/to you? How would you thank them? What would you do? Students can relate the "old poem" (according to them) to their own life, experiences, etc. 

4. Let's get creative!! Write a poem thanking some of your friends in 3 stanzas. Try to rhyme words. Follow Bennett's poem as a guide and always work with a dictionary. Then we will share them with the class. By giving them the number of stanzas and showing them that their poem will be shorter than the original one, we lower the feeling of "I wont be able to do it." 

Walk around the class to help them with the rhyming. Provide synonyms, etc. 

Working with dictionaries gives students a sense of independence. It may take longer but it is totally worthy ! 

Try not to force students if they do not want to share their creations with the class. Instead, you may offer yourself as a reader without mentioning the name of the writer :)

My teenage students have created IN CRE DI BLE poems and every time they or I have read them aloud, claps have filled the classroom. 

Try the activities and share the wonderful results with more ESL teachers like me ;) 

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head. 

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Activities

1. Ask a student to read the first stanza and the rest of the group not to look at the poem but to just listen to that part. In this way, students need to pay attention to the one who is reading and the reader needs to focus on his reading aloud clearly :) 

2. Who is described? What does he look like? Which person comes to your head who may be similar to Richard Cory? Why? By comparing Richard Cory with another person, students can see how minds and imagination work differently in each human being as they will probably provide different names. They can even discuss which aspects have made them think of that person. 

3. Let's read all together the second stanza. Would you like to meet him? If students do not know the meaning of some words just provide it by means of examples or mimics so as not to translate. 

4. Read the third stanza: Would you like to be in his place? Provide an argument for your answer. What are the pros and cons of being very rich? Draw a chart on the board to write the pros and cons students come up with. They will have an image of their ideas in an ORGANIZED way :) and will probably want THEIR idea to appear on the board ;) 

5. Read the last stanza. What is your reaction? What do you feel for him? What could have happened to him? By discussing possible motives, students may reach different conclusions about the human soul, the power of the mind, what money represents, etc !!! :) 

6. FINAL TASK! In pair, choose a dead famous person and write a poem about him/her. Follow this structure: 
1. physical description
2. personality
3. how people look at him/her; what people think about him/her. 
4. how he/she died. How people reacted. 
My students have produced INCREDIBLE poems with deep understanding of that person's soul and a lot of respect towards him/her. 

HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS WONDERFUL POEM !! 
LET ME KNOW HOW IT WORKS FOR YOUR STUDENTS ;) 

The Man Who Thinks He Can

If you think you are beaten, you are;

If you think you dare not, you don't.

If you'd like to win, but think you can't

It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you've lost.

For out in the world we find

Success begins with a fellow's will:

It's all in his state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are:

You've got to think high to rise,

You've got to be sure of yourself before

You'can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man,

But sooner or later the man who wins

Is the one who thinks he can. 

Walter D. Wintle

ACTIVITIES

1. Let's read it aloud and discuss which word/s should be stressed and why. What happens if, for example, I take out the word NOT in the 2nd line? 

In this way, students engage in a pretty interesting discussion; they find out the message of each stanza without real intention, and discover the hidden power or words :) 

2. Now that we have agreed on the meaningful words, let's focus on the punctuation. When do we generally use commas/semi colons/colons and stops? Why do you think the author has chosen those marks in those lines? 

By moving those questions in groups, the students discover the importance of the punctuation marks ;) 

3. Let's get creative! Copy the If clauses and finish them with your own ideas. 

Before letting the students plunge into the activity, talk with them about the message conveyed in the first conditional.  

4. Going beyond! Fill in these phrases with your thoughts, beliefs or experiences. 

For out in the world we find___________

Success begins with____________

Life's battles don't always go______

But sooner or later the man who wins________

Here the students must think about themselves, those around them, their context, etc before completing the lines. Not only, do we ask them to think but also to FEEL ;) 

5. Pair work: Choose one of the stanzas and imagine you want to SELL that idea. 

A. Create a slogan for it.

B. Draw a symbol for your "product" 

This activity works marvellously since the students get really hooked and, once again, they are working with the poem and its messages but from a more original perspective :) 

I hope you have enjoyed these activities as much as I have and do every time I work with this wonderful poem !! 

Let me know about your experience with it :) 

Learning experiences at the Teacher Training College I

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn" John Cotton Dana

yes, but how cannot I cease when I attend 9 annual, excruciating subjects and work in the afternoons? Let alone, having already a family of my own!! 
well, as a matter of fact, you perfectly can :) 

I have attended a public, wonderful TTC (teacher training college) where I spent innumerous hours discussing essays, gramatical terms, trying to understand the phonetic chart ;) or just drinking "mate" while planning for the feared residence. 

But I believe I just could not have done that without a simple POWERFUL recipe:

Ingredients
a spoonful of your parents' support
a pinch of your classmates/friends' smiles, hugs and shoulders to cry on 
a bag of your attitude

Steps
In an enormous pot, melt your parents' support little by little and with a small fire. Let your parents sprinkle every day some of it (and if it is accompanied by hugs or kisses, much better!) 

Once you have a consistent, shiny mixture, pour your classmates' gifts one by one in any order, but do not forget to constantly stir; you do not want a sticky mixture that then you have to scratch from the bottom of the pot ;) 

Sparkle the last ingredient throughout all the procedure day by day with a confident hand. 

Charles Swindoll once wrote: "(. . . ) I am convinced that 10 % is what happens to me and 90 % how I react to it, and so it is with you. You are in charge of your own attitudes. " So with a true attitude towards your goal, you will definitely be able to achieve that objective. 

What are your thoughts about my recipe?  What has worked for you ?