Poetry Break #5 - Dizzy Wind

This week's poetry break is based on the poem "Dizzy Wind" by Lisa Westberg Peters. It's in her book Earthshake: Poems from the ground up, which is full of poems on other great earth science topics, like layers of the earth, lava, and glaciers. The poem has a somewhat concrete form, so it would be impossible to discusss it without showing here an image of the poem on the page in the book:



Setting the Stage: A copy of the poem will be displayed by a multi-media projector in front of the class, who will be seated on the floor. The librarian/teacher will have a globe as a visual aid.

Introduction: Review what students already know about the movement of the earth and the cardinal directions.

Inviting Participation: Point out the way the words in the poem move with the directions they mention. Ask students to hold their hands in front of them and swoop down on the word "south," left on the word "west," and so on.

Read the Poem: as written above

(Peters, Lisa Westberg. 2003. Dizzy wind. In Earthshake: Poems from the ground up, illus. by Cathie Felstead, 11. New York: Greenwillow Books.)

Extension: Use the globe to show how the earth spins. Let one student spin the globe slowly to the right (east) while another tries to track a straight line from the North Pole down. Show students how the "wind" (that is, the student's finger) ends up to the west of its original longitude.