When doing poetry as copywork

[Guest]

When you have your dc do poetry for copywork, how do you handle lines that are too long? Meaning, for a lot of lines of poetry, my son won't get the whole line of poetry on a single line of his copywork paper. Do I worry about a new line of poetry starting correctly? Or should I just have him continue to copy the poem, capitalizing the first letter of each line? He is 7 and will be starting 2nd grade. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

[Aconnolley]

:bigear:

 

I have wondered the same thing. :001_smile:

 

Angela

[Miss Tick]

First, I pointed out that poetry doesn't generally have "rules" so much as "guidelines". Then, I said each line of the poem should start a new line in the copywork. So if it takes them 2 1/2 lines to copy the first line of the poem, the next line of the copied poem should start on a fresh line of the copy sheet. Once they get that without having to be reminded all the time I will start to introduce more subtleties and nuances. :001_smile:

[Kuovonne]

I don't have my kids copy poetry for a number of reasons. However, when I copy poetry, if I can't fit a whole line on the sheet of paper, I indent the following lines on the paper until I get to the end of the line of the poem. Then the next line of the poem starts on a new line on the paper, as usual.

[Dinsfamily]

I don't have my kids copy poetry for a number of reasons. However, when I copy poetry, if I can't fit a whole line on the sheet of paper, I indent the following lines on the paper until I get to the end of the line of the poem. Then the next line of the poem starts on a new line on the paper, as usual.

 

This is what I do when D-Man copies poetry. We talked about intention and I made sure he understood that it was a continuation of the line instead of a new one. Then, he started the next one with a capital on the next line of the paper next to the margin.

[heidirenata]

You can also skip a line between each line of the poem, so that if the line is lengthy and runs beyond the end of the line on the page there is a definite separation between the lines of the poem. That's how my private school when I was a kid made us do it.

[Love2teach0307]

We often copy poetry for copywork. That and our Bible memory verses make up most of our copywork. I teach that poetry is also an art form and the author gets to decide the form and look of poem as a whole and it is important to respect that. It's complicated to write out, but I'll try my best to tell you what we do with long lines of poetry.

 

If the poem has a straight margin, then the long line simply gets indented a normal indention (about 5 spaces or 1 inch) on the second row. If the author did not capitalize that first word we had to put on that second row, then we do not capitalize it. It's not a regular line of poetry, just an extension of the first line.

 

If the poem has indented lines in it, then when we get to a long line, we double indent it (about 10 spaces or 2 inches) without capitalizing to show it's still an extention of the line above. If the line is super long, we keep double indenting each line so they all line up straight under the second row until you finish. That gives it a neat look, plus not capitalizing those words indicate it's just part of a very long line of poetry.

 

Hope this isn't too confusing. :001_smile: