Homeschool Free Teaching Resource: Christian Poetry
Here is a free resource for Christian parents and educators to use when teaching poetry. I have used a wide time range and included historical information. There are many ways to include cross-subject teaching with these poems, from the history of printing and its affect on all that followed to Bible study.
Because of the time frame some of the language is archaic. I encourage you to get out the dictionary and add your own explanations of vocabulary, as well as allowing your students to think and reason out passages that are not at first clearly understood. This is a good tool to grow critical thinking and the discipline to persevere.
Resource Begins Below Following the Who Am I Section.
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Who Am I? I am Mary Katherine May, owner of Quality Music and Books in Osseo, Minnesota. QMB is a Christian book and music store with so much more! We have Christian books as well as quality-reading non-Christian literature, Children’s books, printed music and CDs, worship resources, audio & video rental, educational materials and gifts.
In stock are new, used and publishers overstock books at affordable prices. We do special orders and free Bible & book name imprinting. We also have a local service that makes pre-inked address and notary stamps.
Here is what’s NEW!!
Quality Music and Books desires to serve the community by aiding the homeschooling community. We are currently re-vamping our shop so that it is user friendly for educators. QMB is in the process of setting up a revolving book plan where books may be exchanged, bought and sold.
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We buy homeschool books. We sell homeschool books.
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When you return the books we willpay you up to 50% (condition rules apply) of your purchase price back.
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All new books are 10% off retail price, including special order books.
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We do special orders.
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QMB rentals include family oriented movies and audiobooks, educational, Christian and inspirational offerings.
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QMB has a meeting space that can be reserved for study groups.
“The Lamb” by William Blake
William Blake was born in London, England, in 1757. His father and mother were parents of seven children, of which William was the third. He was homeschooled by his mother, and his father worked as a hosier.
A hosier is a person who sells socks and stockings.
When William was a teenager he went to work as an apprentice to learn the skill of engraving, which is how picture prints were made in the 1700s and 1800s. He liked to write poetry, and today more than 250 years later, we still read what he wrote.
In 1782, when William was 24 years old, he married Catherine Boucher. At the time of their wedding she could not read or write, so she signed their marriage certificate with an “X.” William taught her how to read and write, and also taught her the art of engraving. The two of them became very successful.
William Blake invented a method of printing called “relief etching.” This is where a picture and words can both be on the same page. These pages were made into books called “illuminated books.” Before he invented this process, the only way to have both print and picture on one page was to do both by hand.
In today’s language, when something is illuminated it is lit up with light. Looking back to the time when William and Catherine were alive, the pictures in the books with the words lit up, or illuminated the story by letting the eyes see without reading about what was happening.
After William printed the illuminated pages, Catherine would then hand color the picture, because there was no machine invented to do that yet.
One of my favorite poems comes from a group that William called Songs of Innocence. The poem is called The Lamb. Some of the words may see different because we don’t use them much any more. I suggest you ask what they mean or look them up in a dictionary. I am wondering if you will know who the lamb is?
The Lamb has been used as an hymn, such as is sung in church during worship. Hymns are made of two parts–the hymn (poem) and the tune. Very often the two parts are not composed by the same person. Each line of the hymn is called a verse. Each group of lines is called a stanza. Thus, The Lamb is made up of two stanzas, each with ten verses.
Songs of Innocence View Blake’s Illuminated Page of The Lamb
Portrait of Blake Listen to a Hymn Arrangement
Little Lamb
from Songs of Innocence
by William Blake (1757-1826)
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bade thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a lamb,
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child, and thee a Lamb,
We are called by His Name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!
What Kind of Shoes You Gwine to Wear?
The first Africans in America worked as slaves for no money, and they could not choose where to live. They lived in homes that were not in good condition, most worked very hard and had no nice clothes. To control slaves even more, their owners would not allow them to speak their own languages or worship as they chose.
Many slaves became Christians, because Jesus offered hope of a much better life someday, and freedom. They would hold meetings in secret at night and sing songs they brought from their homelands and turned into Christian songs, and ones they had made up on their own. Some of the songs, known as Spirituals, had hidden meanings. This was all because they would be punished if discovered by the owners because a lot of the times their owners didn’t want them to gather in Jesus’ name.
The Spirituals told their stories about how they wanted to be free, how they didn’t want to have their families pulled apart, and the hope they had for a better future.
One of the music traditions the slaves brought from Africa was “call and response.” In the Spiritual, What Kind of Shoes You Gwine to Wear? We can easily find the call and then the response, or answer. Notice that the call is a question, then there is a response given in parenthesis ( ) that gives an anwer using their real circumstances, and then a response with what will be real in heaven.
What can we understand about slave life by comparing what was real at the time and what will be in heaven?
LINKS
www.negrospirituals.com/history.htm Fisk Jubilee Singers
Twin Cities Public Television: Minnesota’s Black Pioneers
Underground Railroad Spirituals & Quilt Code
Smithsonian Teacher Resources for Black History Month (February)
What Kind of Shoes You Gwine to Wear?
What kind of shoes you gwine to wear, golden shoes?
I’m goin’ to wear my old work shoes!
Golden shoes I’m bound to wear,
And they outshine the glittering sun. Oh, yes. I’m gwine to jine that heavenly choir.
Oh, yes, soldier of the Cross.What kind of harp you gwine to play, golden harp?
I’m gonna play my old French harp!
Golden harp I’m bound to play.
And they outshine the glittering sun.What kind of robe you gwine to wear, white robe ?
I ain`t a-gonna wear no robe!
Long white robe I’m bound to wear.
And they outshine the glittering sun.
What kind of crown you gwine to wear, starry crown?
I don’t expect to get no crown!
Starry crown I’m bound to wear.
And they outshine the glittering sun.
What kind of song you gwine to sing, happy song?
I’m gonna sing the blues!
Happy song I’m bound to sing.
And there ain’t no trouble any more.
What kind of day it gwine to be, happy day?
I expect it be a hot day for me!
Happy day it’s bound to be.
When I ‘pear by the glittering throne.
O Gladsome Light
I think it very appropriate that the oldest hymn that we have outside of the hymns in the Bible be about light, because Jesus is the Light of the World. This hymn was used at the end of the day, when Christians came together for evening worship.
O Gladsome Light was written when first composed in Greek. Here is a translation done by John Keble in the 1800s. You may need to think about what the words mean. It might be helpful to look at whole phrases rather than single words.
In the second stanza notice how the word “hymn” is used. A hymn is not only a poem as in a noun, it is also a verb that means to sing songs of praise.
Hail, gladdening Light, of His pure glory poured,
Who is immortal Father, heavenly blest;
Highest and holiest—Jesus Christ our Lord!
Now are we come to the sun’s hour of rest;
All times are ordered in Thy Word alone,
Therefore the day and night Thy glories own.
The lights of evening now around us shine;
We hymn Thy blest humanity divine;
Worthiest art Thou at all times to be sung,
By grateful hearts, with undefilèd tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of life, alone!
Therefore shall all the worlds Thy glories own.
Early Christian Art and Architecture
Jesus Shall Reign by Isaac Watts
There was a quite clever boy who was born over three hundred years ago in England by the name of Isaac Watts. He was good at learning languages, and liked to make up rhymes. At this time when people went to church they did not sing songs like we know today. They most often sang the Psalms, because they were considered the only songs worthy of being used during worship.
If you should look at the Psalms and see what they are about, you will soon discover that they are not very well set up for singing like a song. Along with the difficulty of singing the words as they were, when Isaac lived there were only a certain number of tunes, many people could not read, and those that did sang songs from books with no music!
There were no large screens or worship teams in the 1600s and 1700s to lead the singing. What they would do is have a leader (with no microphone) sing a line of the Psalm, and then the people would sing it back. That is how hymns were sung.
Isaac thought this to be a terrible situation. He disliked hearing the Psalms sung as they were. One day he went to his father who was the pastor at the church where Isaac’s family worshipped, and asked to speak with him about the situation. Isaac told his father that he could do better. His father told him to go and work on it, and come back with something for him to consider.
Isaac told his father that he already had something written out. What this young man did was to take the Psalms and put them into verse. The hymn, Jesus Shall Reign is based upon a portion of Psalm 92. Isaac went on to write over 750 hymns in this manner. He was the beginning of a complete change in the style of church music, and is called the “Father of English Hymnody.”
What happens to a hymn over time is that the best stanzas are kept and used, and some are set aside for sake of time and importance. When churches use Jesus Shall Reign for a hymn there are usually around four stanzas. Take a look at the original that Isaac wrote. You may decide to look it up in a hymnal, but for sure look at Psalm 72 and compare it to what Isaac Watts wrote.
Jesus Shall Reign
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
Behold the islands with their kings,
And Europe her best tribute brings;
From north to south the princes meet,
To pay their homage at His feet.
There Persia, glorious to behold,
There India shines in eastern gold;
And barb’rous nations at His word
Submit, and bow, and own their Lord.
To Him shall endless prayer be made,
And praises throng to crown His head;
His Name like sweet perfume shall rise
With every morning sacrifice.
People and realms of every tongue
Dwell on His love with sweetest song;
And infant voices shall proclaim
Their early blessings on His Name.
Blessings abound wherever He reigns;
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains;
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are blessed.
Where He displays His healing power,
Death and the curse are known no more:
In Him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost.
Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honors to our King;
Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the loud amen!
Great God, whose universal sway
The known and unknown worlds obey,
Now give the kingdom to Thy Son,
Extend His power, exalt His throne.
The scepter well becomes His hands;
All Heav’n submits to His commands;
His justice shall avenge the poor,
And pride and rage prevail no more.
With power He vindicates the just,
And treads th’oppressor in the dust:
His worship and His fear shall last
Till hours, and years, and time be past.
As rain on meadows newly mown,
So shall He send his influence down:
His grace on fainting souls distills,
Like heav’nly dew on thirsty hills.
The heathen lands, that lie beneath
The shades of overspreading death,
Revive at His first dawning light;
And deserts blossom at the sight.
The saints shall flourish in His days,
Dressed in the robes of joy and praise;
Peace, like a river, from His throne
Shall flow to nations yet unknown.