Poem illuminating count and non-count/mass nouns
October 17, 2010 6:10 AM   Subscribe

Is there a short, lovely, simple poem I can give to ESL students that contains significant examples of English 'count' nouns (basic stuff you can count) and 'non-count' or 'mass' (concepts, feelings, liquids) nouns?

I thought nice short poem would be a good take-away from a review of this concept. Surely someone out there will have an idea?

It would be great if the poem juxtaposed these two noun types clearly, something like this intentionally bad example:
Sand is lovely, but a grain of sand is beautiful;
I hate chocolate, but a chocolate is your gift to me.
To have tears is human, to lack patience is also human.
The idea I'm trying to convey is a mix of using both 'count' nouns and 'non-count' nouns, showing in a compact way how count nouns are made plural by adding 's' and non-count nouns don't get made plural (last line); how a non-count noun (sand) doesn't take a determiner, but adding a unit of measure as the main noun means it does take a determiner (a grain of sand), and so forth.

The trick is that I'd like it also to be art.

OK, go!
posted by amtho to Society & Culture (12 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Why don't you just keep writing the poem you start above? It doesn't sound that bad at all.
posted by fantasticninety at 7:49 AM on October 17, 2010


Response by poster: What? And ignore all the MeFi literati knowledge?
posted by amtho at 9:06 AM on October 17, 2010


This book by Ruth Heller might help.
posted by tamitang at 10:05 AM on October 17, 2010


Perhaps "Open Strings" by Jan Zwicky?

Open Strings

E, laser of the ear, ear's
vinegar, bagpipes
in a tux, the sky's blue, pointed;

A, youngest of the four, cocksure
and vulnerable, the white kid
on the basketball team — immature,
ambitious, charming,
indispensable; apprenticed
to desire;

D is the tailor
who sewed the note "I shall always love you"
into the hem of the village belle's wedding dress,
a note not discovered until ten years later in New York
where, poor and abandoned, she was ripping up the skirt
for curtains, and he came,
and he married her;

G, cathedral of the breastbone,
oak-light, earth;

it's the air they offer us,
but not the cool draught of their half-brothers
the harmonics, no,
a bigger wind, the body
snapped out like a towel, air
like the sky above the foothills,
like the desire to drown,

a place of worship,
a laying down of arms.

Open strings
are embassadors from the republic of silence.
They are the name of that moment when you realize
clearly, for the first time,
you will die. After illness,
the first startled breath.

posted by Beardman at 10:32 AM on October 17, 2010


This isn't a poem, but maybe the bolded part could be useful:

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or
of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind
, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell
tolls; it tolls for thee."

posted by people? I ain't people! at 11:04 AM on October 17, 2010


Best answer: Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet;
And so are you.
posted by null14 at 12:22 PM on October 17, 2010


Best answer: Whatever you find, make sure it helps them distinguish between the use of "less" and "fewer". A lot of native English speakers get this wrong, and it's a peeve of mine.
posted by wwartorff at 1:31 PM on October 17, 2010


Also, have you considered having them learn/write recipes for their favorite dishes?
posted by null14 at 1:33 PM on October 17, 2010


Best answer: Honestly, what you've got started isn't so bad, especially since you're creating it for teaching purposes, not everlasting art. I've found, especially with poetry, that sometimes it's easier to create my own materials when it comes to readings for my students. You've got a good understanding of your students' levels, and you'll likely be able to create something they'll easily be able to access. A lot of poetry (simply because it's poetry) is quite difficult to understand for ESL students, with the piles of metaphors and difficult vocabulary. Hell, even Shel Silverstein is near impossible for most students I've come across.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:11 PM on October 17, 2010


Response by poster: Well, I guess I brought this on myself. If I finish the poem, I'll post it here.
posted by amtho at 7:22 PM on October 17, 2010


That'd be great. Would it be okay if I used it? I'm doing some things now with count/non-count nouns, and it would be a nice diversion from the regular stuff.

Random bit that I've always tossed into these classes: In general if it's something you cut into serving portions, pre-cut it's countable, post-cut uncountable. I use this with love/like/dislike/hate conversation, and get students to understand that "I love cat" is a lot closer to "I love pork" than they want it to be, or to ask them if they can really eat a whole watermelon by themselves.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:00 PM on October 17, 2010


Depending on the level and interest of your students, if they start to get bogged down about the inconsistencies in English (rice vs. lentils, chairs vs. furniture), it might be fun and/or helpful to introduce the concept of the Universal Grinder (and its counterpart, the Universal Sausage-maker.)
posted by heyforfour at 8:58 AM on October 18, 2010


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