Odes and Anti-odes

Years 7 - 8

Three-week Program

Let students rant and rave, digging deep into their opinions as they create rejoicing odes and spirited anti-odes. In this program students learn about and experiment with the poetic form of the ode, while discovering useful strategies for idea generation using mentor texts. There will be opportunities to share highlights and bugbears from their everyday life, ranging from delicious foods, favourite seasons and celebrations to mild annoyances, such as self-checkout machines and daylight savings.

Students will develop key skills in passionately debating their opinions using literary techniques like direct address, metaphors, similes, rhymes and imperatives. They will be encouraged to address their subjects in second person, write their own Shakespearean insults, and experiment with spacing for their poems. By the final week, to your delight or detriment, you’ll know precisely what they like best and can’t stand!

• Australian Curriculum Outcomes

  Create literary texts that explore students’ own experiences and imagining (ACELT1607)

  Create literary texts by developing storylines, characters and settings (ACELT1794)

  Create texts that adapt language features and patterns encountered in literary texts, for example characterisation, rhyme, rhythm, mood, music, sound effects and dialogue (ACELT1791)

• NSW Syllabus Outcomes

  Plans, creates and revises written texts for multiple purposes and audiences through selection of text features, sentence-level grammar, punctuation and word-level language (EN3-CWT-01)

  Extends Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary through interacting, wide reading and writing, morphological analysis and generating precise definitions for specific contexts (EN3-VOCAB-01)

• Sample Student Writing

  Love/ Hate Ode to Rain

          Dear remarkable and rebellious rain…

          You have decided to come once again.

  Your wondrous water sparkles as it falls,

  Making lovely sounds echoing through the halls.

  You are like a symphony of drops,

  I am sad when your performance stops.

                                   But sometimes rain,                                  you are a pest,

                                    Just one sunny day

                                    is my request.

                                    One sunny day

                                    to have some fun,

                                    Please dear rain,

                                    don't hide the sun.

  Some days you decide to be polite

  And let the sun shine in sight.

  Those days give me such delight,

  Days when you and sun don’t fight.

  Both your water and the sun’s light,

  Make a rainbow both colourful and bright!

                                   Other days

                                   you are angry and roar,

                                   Growling with thunder

                                   that shakes my core

                                   Won’t you pause

                                   your powerful pour,

                                   As I leave

                                   the grocery store

                                   So when I enter

                                   through the front door,

                                   There won't be

                                   puddles on the floor.

          Goodbye dear rain as you go away.

          I hope to see you another day.

  Jasia, Year 8, HERRD Homeschool Group, T2 2024
  

Available in Semester 1, 2026.