Materials for Youth: Poetry Booktalk

Description: This is a book talk session I created to teach young children about Shel Silverstein's classic, A Light in the Attic. I have also created an historical book talk, as well as a number of other lesson plans for English teachers, librarians, and vocational educators ranging from late elementary school to high school seniors.

AUDIENCE: A 4^th Grade Class (Approximately 20 students.)

CITATION: Silverstein, Shel. A Light in the Attic. New York, N.Y: Harper & Row, 1981. Print.

“Last night, while I lay thinking here,

Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear

And pranced and partied all night long

And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I’m dumb in school?

Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?

Whatif I get beat up?

Whatif there’s poison in my cup?...”

Whatif you want to try something new?

Maybe “A Light in the Attic” by Shel Silverstein is just for you!

Even if you love a good story or novel, there is just nothing like sitting down and flipping through a great book of quick, fun, and silly poems like the ones that Shel Silverstein has written and collected for his anthology, A Light in the Attic.  You can sit back and enjoy some of these quirky rhymes on your own, or have even more fun reading them aloud with your friends!  That is of course, unless you’re friends with Sour Face Ann, the little girl covered in fleas!   

“A Light in the Attic” is chock full of poems that will make you think while you’re giggling! Poems like the Homework Machine – would having a machine that could do all your homework for you really work out as well as you’d like it to? How would it help? How might it mess up?

[Allow students to answer.] 

And what would the world sound like without the letter G? Would anyone like to give that a try? 

[Allow students to try to talk without using the letter G, or see what their friends’ names sound like without it.]

You can learn more about how Shel Silverstein would answer those questions when you check out A Light in the Attic!