Portuguese Year 3: Re-creating a poem with gestures, rhythm and drawing
Portuguese, Year 3 (Portugal): Say what a short text says in another form (words, gestures, body, music or drawing) without changing its meaning.
Same meaning, another form
To re-create a text is to say what it says in another way: with your own words (verbal), with gestures, with your body, with music or with a picture (visual arts). The meaning stays; what changes is the way of showing it. With the cat poem you can tell it in your own words, mime it, clap its rhythm or draw what it says. It is not copying, and it is not changing the story.
Each person shows it in their own way
Each person understands and expresses better in one way: some prefer to draw, others to mime or to sing. To re-create you must understand the text well, because you can only show what you understood. It also helps to share a poem or a story with someone who cannot read yet, or who prefers to see and hear. And it is a fun way to rehearse before presenting to the class.
One poem, four ways
Poem: «O gato subiu ao telhado / e miou para a lua; / a lua, de lado, / iluminou a rua.» (The cat climbed onto the roof and miaowed at the moon; the moon, to one side, lit up the street.) Step 1: understand it: the cat climbs, miaows at the moon, the moon lights the street. Step 2, gestures and body: you climb slowly like a cat and lift your arms to the moon. Step 3, music: you clap softly to the rhythm of the verses. Step 4, drawing: a cat on a roof, a big moon and a bright street. Step 5, words: «Uma noite, um gato subiu ao telhado…» (“One night, a cat climbed onto the roof…”).
Copying, changing the story, or one «right» way
To re-create is not to copy the text, nor to swap it for another one. If you draw a dog in a garden, you have told something else. And there is not only one right way: one friend may draw, another mime, another clap, and all can be right, as long as they keep what the poem says. Always ask yourself: «Whoever hears or sees my version, will they recognise the poem?»
Where things are re-created
Re-creating happens when you draw a story you heard, when you mime a tale in a game with friends, when you invent a tune for a lengalenga or when the class puts on a shadow play. Artists do it every day: a book becomes a film, a song becomes a dance.
Test what you learned
What does it mean to re-create a poem?
- a) Telling it, miming it, singing it or drawing it, keeping what it says
- b) Copying it letter by letter
- c) Swapping it for another poem about something else
Correct answer: a) Telling it, miming it, singing it or drawing it, keeping what it says — Yes: the meaning stays and only the way of showing it changes.
Which of these re-creations of the poem about the cat and the moon («O gato subiu ao telhado…») respects what it says?
- a) Drawing a cat on a roof and a big moon over the street
- b) Miming a dog running in a garden
- c) Writing the poem again, identical, in prettier handwriting
Correct answer: a) Drawing a cat on a roof and a big moon over the street — Yes: it shows the cat, the roof, the moon and the street, in a new form.
Ana mimes the cat, Dora draws it under the moon and Rui claps the rhythm of the verses. Who did it wrong?
- a) Only Dora, because drawing is the only way to re-create
- b) None: each one used a different form and all keep what the poem says
- c) Only Ana, because gestures do not count
Correct answer: b) None: each one used a different form and all keep what the poem says — Yes: there are many right ways, as long as the poem can still be recognised.
Keep exploring
Other languages
Loading MyLeoNes™…