If by Rudyard Kipling MS / ELA Virtue and Vice, Experience, Knowledge, Principle, Perseverance Ask students to write a five-minute free-write response to this question: How do you define adulthood? (Or, What qualities establish a person as a mature adult? ) A freewrite assignment does not require students to consider organization, paragraphing, etc. Ask students to review what they have written and circle their top three requirements for adulthood. Distribute the text and ask students what they anticipate the topic of the text will be. Ask students to number the couplets #1-16. (Place a number by each non-indented line.) Read the text aloud to the class, and as they follow along, have them mark unknown vocabulary. 1
Rudyard Kipling was a British poet and storyteller from the late Victorian period who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907. While the poem If was deemed mediocre by the author himself, even today it is regularly voted as Great Britain s favorite poem. The poet wrote the verse for his son over a century ago, and it continues to inspire readers to this day. Ask students for the unfamiliar terms that they marked during the Inspectional Read, and list them on the board. Ask for student volunteers to look up definitions of contextual vocabulary words in a dictionary. As the definitions are located (and these can be done out of order), have the student read aloud each provided definition and ask the class to vote on which definition fits the context of the line of verse. For example, allowance has several drastically different definitions, and it may take students a few tries to select the appropriate definition. Pitch-and-toss will likely not be found in a dictionary, and so the teacher should provide the definition. Be sure to include the following terms: allowance, knave, pitch-and-toss (An old-fashioned game of chance), sinew, virtue, vice In addition, review vocabulary from poetry unit or other your content instruction, such as personification (a type of figurative language wherein the author assigns human attributes to something non-human.) Choose one student volunteer per stanza and read the poem aloud a second time. Ask students a) to underline what they think is the author s best piece of advice; b) to place a question mark by a statement that makes them wonder; and c) to place a star by any examples of personification. 2
Which 1-2 line clause (subject plus verb) is the speaker s most important piece of advice? (round-robin response) Why? (spontaneous discussion) Why do you think the poet chose this title for his poem? Which virtue is most prized by the speaker of the poem? And/or, which vice does the poet consider to be the most dangerous? Which example of personification sparks your imagination the most? Why? Notice that several midline nouns are capitalized. Why do you think the poet made this choice? Do you agree or disagree with the value the poet places on maturity in stanza 4? Why or why not? 3
Ask students to return to the free-write response from the Launch Activity, and to add any additional ideas that they heard, said, or thought during the seminar discussion. Which couplet from If, by Rudyard Kipling can serve as a slogan for the class? After reading and discussing the poem, write an essay that explains why this couplet would be appropriate. Support your explanation with evidence from the poem and the seminar discussion. Write from the point of view of an experienced mentor. (LDC Task#: 19 ) Working in partners, ask students to spend several minutes sharing the qualities for adulthood they identified in the pre-seminar writing task, as well as the notes they took about the discussion. The couplet they choose to write about will likely reflect the student s viewpoints on essential characteristics for maturity. Students may find that their viewpoints have evolved over the course of the seminar, and this is fine. Teachers can provide the following guidelines to support students in structuring their writing. 4
Essays will be about one handwritten page (12-14 sentences) Begin with a topic sentence that identifies the couplet The body of the essay should include several specific supporting details At least two pieces of evidence from the poem/seminar discussion. Evidence from the text should be cited with a line number. Conclude with a parting thought that builds on the topic sentence Challenge all to draft their writing using the structure template from Structuring the Writing and notes they made during the Launch, Transition to Writing and Brainstorm. Have participants work in pairs to read their first drafts aloud to each other with emphasis on reader as creator and editor. Listener should attend to components of the essay specified in Structuring the Writing.Listener says back one point heard clearly and asks one question for clarification. Switch roles. Give time for full revisions resulting in a second draft. Once the second draft is complete, have participants work in groups of three-four and this time take turns reading each other s second drafts slowly and silently, marking any spelling or grammar errors they find. (Have dictionaries and grammar handbooks available for reference.) Take this opportunity to clarify/reteach any specific grammar strategies you have identified your students needing. Give time for full revisions resulting in a third and final draft. Form desks into a circle and ask students to share excerpts from essays in class. Vote on a class favorite and ask for student volunteers to display the couplet on a poster. Refer to the class motto regularly. 5
Jill Kerr National Paideia Faculty 6
If By Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don t deal in lies, Or being hated, don t give way to hating, And yet don t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream and not make dreams your master; If you can think and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build em up with worn out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: Hold on! If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that s in it, And which is more you ll be a Man, my son! www.poetryfoundation.org 7