SPEECH EXERCISES and POETRY FOR GRADES 7 AND 8

Recommended by Patti Connolly

Dust aids dim locks to darken this lobby.

No knock knees on nimbly moving mules.

Rarely are merrier riddles more ready.

Catching patchy acts clattering

lately light skeptical
catching scratching patchy acts clattering
lately plotting light skeptical.

Pitch the pebble

pinch the penny
plot the pledges
plenty plight.

Clip plup plick glick

clinked clapper rigid
scattered trappings
rapidly tripled.

And the muttering grew to a grumbling,

and the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling,
and out of the house the rats came tumbling.

Rivers and seas

Seas and rivers
Rivers and seas and rills
Rills and seas and rivers
Rivers and seas and rills and ripples
Ripples and rills and seas and rivers
Rivers and seas and rills and ripples rolling
Rolling ripples and rills and seas and rivers
Rivers and seas and rills and ripples rolling and riling
Riling and rolling ripples and rills and seas and rivers.

Why whittle wheezy whispering whistles?

Twice twenty twitches twirl the twain
to wind between the twisted twine.
Whispering winds are whirling the waters.
Whither wander the wind-whipped waves.

POETRY

Look to this day for it is life,

the very life of life,
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our existence.
the bliss of growth,
the glory of action,
the splendour of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
and tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well-spent makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.
Such is the salutation to the dawn!
-Sanskrit

Many the roads that lead to the goal that the wanderer longs for.
Many the dangers that threaten to lure him away from his own path.
Seeker, be wary and watchful to follow the trace of the footprints,
stepping to mold them anew and to tread a fresh way in their outline.
-Unknown

Suggested Poetry for the Seventh Grade

Shakespeare’s sonnets
Columbus Joaquin Miller
O, Agni, Holy Fire Vedic hymn (chemistry)
The Chambered Nautilus Oliver Wendell Holmes (geometry)
Cargoes John Mansfield
The Listeners Walter de la Mere

Suggested Poetry for the Eighth Grade

Crossing the Bar Alfred Tennyson
Song of the Open Road Walt Whitman
If Rudyard Kipling
Oh,Captain Walt Whitman (Abraham Lincoln)
A Psalm of Life Longfellow
The Cloud Percy Shelley
The Prophet Kibran