Character-The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves

 

There's no denying I love poetry, especially when it meets on the corner with character. Kids get poetry; sadly it seems, we adults sometimes lose our ability to really get into the meat of poetry and savor it.

In my classroom, we use poetry to learn to read, to learn to write, for character education and more.
 

The Tiger Who Wore  White  Gloves, by Gwendolyn Brooks, has stood the test of time.  I'm fortunate enough to have the poem t in book form because I think it's out of print. At first sight and listening, it seems to be over the kids' heads, but slowed down and discussed, it's a perfect poem about character. It's about a tiger who is way different than the other animals because he's tired of being fierce and wants to be fancy by wearing gloves.  The animals jeer him  into being satisfied with just being a tiger.

There's a part when you actually feel the crowd get crest fallen. At their tender age, sadly, they've experienced this kind of testing and feel sorry for the tiger.

For full effect, we act it out, practicing our fierceness, and then pretending we are fancy. By the end, they feel defeated just as the tiger did.

Another great thing about this poem is that it's easy to reference to when those incidents come up on the classroom....it can be read and acted it over and over and over again.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!