Remix Poetry: Christmas To Thanksgiving

Let’s remix a famous Christmas poem, give it a Thanksgiving theme, and teach our students advanced poetry concepts at the same time.

Students learn about rhyme-scheme, but meter is a great way to extend their understanding of poetry. Meter defines a poem’s rhythm through stressed and unstressed syllables.

Stressed Out

Introduce stressed/unstressed syllables using students’ names:

• Jennifer, not Jennifer
• Melissa, not Melissa
• Dennis, not Dennis

They need to be comfortable identifying stresses before moving on.

Shakespeare and Seuss

Shakespeare is famous for alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. If exaggerated, it sounds like “da dum” repeated over and over.

A pair of syllables with the “da dum” pattern is called an “iamb.”

Here’s Sonnet 18:

da	dum	da	dum	da	dum	da	dum	da	dum
Shall	I	com	pare	thee	to	a	sum	mer’s	day?

Dr. Seuss also dabbled in “iambs”:

da	dum	da	dum	da	dum	da	dum
I	do	not	like	green	eggs	and	ham!

Three Syllables

Dr. Seuss is more famous for three syllables in a “da da dum” pattern.

da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum
Tell	that	cat	in	the	hat	that	you	don’t	want	to	play!

The “da da dum” pattern is called an “anapest.” Since Suess uses four anapests per line, and tetra means four, this meter is called “anapest tetrameter”. It gives a poem a fun, galloping feel.

A Visit From St. Nicholas

A Visit From St. Nicholas is the most famous poem built on anapest tetrameter.

da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum
Twas	the	night	be	fore	Christ	mas	and	all	through	the	house

Note: Detail-oriented students will catch that not all lines perfectly obey this meter.

Building The Remix

Here’s where rookie Ian would have gone wrong. Rather than scaffolding this task, I would have tossed the kids in. Some would have succeeded, but many would have struggled.

Instead, let’s build up to the large task by scaffolding smaller pieces and modeling the process.

1. Brainstorm Vocab

Let’s begin by brainstorming Thanksgiving-related words. Multisyllabic words are best since they have both stressed and unstressed syllables.

turkey	cornucopia	cranberry sauce
pilgrim	potatoes	parade
autumn	corn on the cob	horn of plenty

2. Break Down Stresses

Then find the stresses:

turkey	cornucopia	cranberry sauce
pilgrim	potatoes	parade
autumn	corn on the cob	horn of plenty

We also need some single-stressed-syllable words like: pie, fork, and plate.

You could even group these into categories based on stresses so kids have ammunition when they attack their own poem: first syllable stressed, second syllable stressed, etc.

3. Build An Anapest

Now model building an anapest for your students. We’ll start with “turkey.” It might help kids to have a table to fill out with 12 boxes to help structure their lines:

da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum

1. The stress is on the first syllable: “turkey.”
2. We need two unstressed syllables to go first: “We’ll have turkey.”
3. Finish off that second anapest: “We’ll have turkey and pie.”

Now we have two anapests for our first line. Let’s fill in our table:

da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum
We’ll	have	tur	key	and	pie

4. Finish Line

The original poem uses tetrameter, so we need a total of four anapests per line. I love that “cranberry sauce” already has an anapest built in, so let’s use that:

da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum	da	da	dum
We’ll	have	tur	key	and	pie	and	some	cran	ber	ry	sauce

We’ve demonstrated how to build one line in anapest tetrameter that mirrors the famous poem A Visit From St. Nicholas. Now let’s rhyme it!

5. Rhyme The Line

Since the original poem’s rhyme scheme is an AABB pattern, we just need to rhyme “sauce.”

Show students that before writing this second line, it’s a good idea to plan the rhyme first. I’m going to end with “floss” and build from there.

We’ll have turkey and pie and some cranberry sauce.
We will eat so much food that I’d better bring floss!

Building The Final Product

Novices think creation happens linearly, but anyone who’s filmed a video, written a song, or penned an essay knows that creation is organic and often chaotic. My first lines might end up in the middle or the very end of the poem.

To emphasize this, have students write each line on a notecard, then move the cards around, finding the best order as they write.

How Long? The original poem is dozens of lines long, which will burn your kids out. Try remixing just the first six lines.

Groups? I’d limit this activity to friendly pairs or singles. Highly creative tasks don’t work well when we force kids to collaborate.

Extension

• Of course some type of classroom reading is a must.
• Consider traveling the school and reading to younger students.
• Add illustrations and build small books.
• Use Garageband to record readings, adding music and sound effects as well.
• For kids intrigued by “iambs” and “anapests,” let them browse this page for others syllable patterns.