Module 5- The Gooch Machine (Performance Poetry)

(Credit)

Bagert, Brod, The Gooch Machine: Poems for Children to Perform: Boyds Mills Press: Pennsylvania, 1997.

ISBN: 1-56397-294-8

Bagert wrote this book of poetry a LONG time ago. I usually don’t use materials that are this dated. Though this collection of poems shows it date, it is still a very fun group of poems. Either a group of children or an individual child can perform these poems. These poems are rather silly in subject—we read about things like behavior at school, aliens and misguided teachers. My students would really enjoy reading them, especially to each other.

The illustrations remind me a lot of caricatures. The different characters, human or not, are draw disproportionately. I like the mood these illustrations give, they match the poems; fun and different. Other than the humor of these poems, I do not think that this enriches the reader’s knowledge. I would venture to say that children may think that these are silly and fun so they would continue to read them and gain fluency.  Unfortunately, I feel that the appeal of this book of poetry is narrow but really offering a significant challenge for students.

I could see using this book of poetry to target reading fluency, as I mentioned previously.  A few activities that we could use these poems for could be performance… students could put these poems to music or put motions with them. The poems in this book really lend themselves to a charade type performance. They also could be used to practice speed-reading, in preparation for DIBELS, a reading fluency test.

Overall, I could definitely fine a lot of use for Brod Bagert’s The Gooch Machine. Any poetry for students to be exposed to is helpful. I would not rank it very high with the other pieces of poetry that we’ve been reading and that I’ve reviewed on this blog.

The Poet Tree

One day I saw a cypress tree

with knees just like the knees on me.

I saw a pine tree tall and green

That made the air feel fresh and clean.

I saw a giant oak.

And a quite, stately palm.

With leaves like fans to cool the sky

In places where it’s warm.

But in all the world, from pole to pole.

My eyes may never see

Branches with leaves that sing to me

Like my lovely poet tree.