7+ End of the Year or Graduation Poems
In teacher forums where I spend my free time, I am starting to see references to graduation decorations and other end of the year wrap-up stuff. So today I thought I'd share with you a few sources of potential Grad or "end of the school year" poems. Voici sept poèmes à contempler pour les cérémonies des finissants, aux niveaux variés.
There are three short ones shared here by teachers. They are apparently from a particular collection, which the teacher who named them indicated, which is helpful in case you're looking for something to purchase. L'école est fermée by Georges Jean, Le Temps des vacances by Maurice Carème, and Route nationale 7 by Charles Trénet.
La catastrophe - Istvan CSUKAS (Poème russe / hongrois, traduit)
En sortant de l'école - Jacques Prévert. Il y a beaucoup de versions musicales sur YouTube aussi, si vous avez envie de la partager avec vos jeunes en classe. There's even a version on TFO, under the name "Tour du monde surréaliste" but just a heads up - there's a blue, naked barbie-like woman in it. For that reason, it might not be your first choice for younger grades.)
Vacances - Nadia Leichtnam (who may have been a student herself at the time of writing this poem) It is a very short one. Maybe not as inspirational, but not exactly negative towards learning and school either.
Liberté - Maurice Carème Very nice, inspiring and positive.
Incidentally, this Belgian poet has a lovely (if somewhat old) website exposing several different formats for poems, should you care to explore some of those with your students. Check the Introduction, Poésie Oeuvres and Liens pages. Those teaching grade 8 Core French might find this helpful in reaching some of the intercultural expectations in Ontario, for French in Europe.)
Also, there are some very short quotes that might be suitable as well, for which I made a Pinterest board. Maybe in the summer when I have some time, I'll come back & add the poems I linked to in this blog post there as well, but for now, there are no duplicates between the two.
If by chance, you'd like to help build this collection, I'm totally open to making it a collaborative pinterest board. So please reach out & let me know, either in the comments below or somewhere else that you already know how to connect with me privately. Please note that you DO need to follow someone on Pinterest in order to be added as a contributor to a pin board.
Other great resources for teaching poetry include:
I hope that's been helpful, as we get closer to the end of the school year! I'd love to hear about what worked for your particular students.
There are three short ones shared here by teachers. They are apparently from a particular collection, which the teacher who named them indicated, which is helpful in case you're looking for something to purchase. L'école est fermée by Georges Jean, Le Temps des vacances by Maurice Carème, and Route nationale 7 by Charles Trénet.
La catastrophe - Istvan CSUKAS (Poème russe / hongrois, traduit)
En sortant de l'école - Jacques Prévert. Il y a beaucoup de versions musicales sur YouTube aussi, si vous avez envie de la partager avec vos jeunes en classe. There's even a version on TFO, under the name "Tour du monde surréaliste" but just a heads up - there's a blue, naked barbie-like woman in it. For that reason, it might not be your first choice for younger grades.)
Vacances - Nadia Leichtnam (who may have been a student herself at the time of writing this poem) It is a very short one. Maybe not as inspirational, but not exactly negative towards learning and school either.
Liberté - Maurice Carème Very nice, inspiring and positive.
Incidentally, this Belgian poet has a lovely (if somewhat old) website exposing several different formats for poems, should you care to explore some of those with your students. Check the Introduction, Poésie Oeuvres and Liens pages. Those teaching grade 8 Core French might find this helpful in reaching some of the intercultural expectations in Ontario, for French in Europe.)
Also, there are some very short quotes that might be suitable as well, for which I made a Pinterest board. Maybe in the summer when I have some time, I'll come back & add the poems I linked to in this blog post there as well, but for now, there are no duplicates between the two.
If by chance, you'd like to help build this collection, I'm totally open to making it a collaborative pinterest board. So please reach out & let me know, either in the comments below or somewhere else that you already know how to connect with me privately. Please note that you DO need to follow someone on Pinterest in order to be added as a contributor to a pin board.
Other great resources for teaching poetry include:
- Carrefour Education's Journée mondiale de la poésie
- Over 250 poems by Canadian Poets. It seems the filtering tool on this website won't allow me to share the direct link that I want. In the field for "pays" just select Canada from the pull down list. You'll probably want to check them of course for both school appropriateness, as well as comprehensibility by your students, according to their age and level.
- Les Voix de la poésie - an excellent program that High School French teachers in Canada should be familiar with, if not because your students might like to participate, but for the great resources that can be found there, including good video recitations of poems (which may just serve as wonderful exemplars or may be exploited further by the teacher to practice and evaluate listening skills with various voices), and templates for poetry creation assignments
I hope that's been helpful, as we get closer to the end of the school year! I'd love to hear about what worked for your particular students.
