The Red Wheelbarrow
by Neil Diamente
Elementary School Poet-in-Residence 2010
Grade Level: 1-5
Time Frame: 60 minutes
Topic: Image
Learning Objective: To introduce students to poetry using the imagist poem “The Red
Wheelbarrow.”
Sequence of Activities:
Introductory Activities: 20 minutes
•
Begin with the question: “Who likes poetry?” Then ask: “What is poetry?” Let the
students tell you something about their understanding of poetry. You can even write that
last question on the board and their responses underneath it. You might also ask: “Does
it have to rhyme?” “Does it have to use punctuation? Good grammar? Does it have to
be long or short?” Then ask: “What do you find in poetry?” You can offer some
suggestions like colors, people, places, as well as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then
ask: “What’s an image?” List some images that the students come up with on the board.
•
Introduce William Carlos Williams. Offer a brief biography (…born in Rutherford,
New Jersey in 1883, he began writing poetry in school…became a doctor and delivered
over 2000 babies in the Rutherford area between 1910 and 1952!). In 1923 he
published a poem influenced by the Imagists. “What’s an Imagist?” you might hear or
you might ask. The original Imagists believed the job of the poet was: “"To use the
language of common speech, but always the exact word.” Williams wrote that a poem
“must be real, not ‘realism,’ but reality itself. No ideas but in things.” Williams used
ordinary language from everyday life. Write his poem on the board:
