Teach a Poem: "Risk"Author(s): Barbara WilliamsSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 40, No. 7 (Mar., 1987), p. 701Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199586 .

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Teach a poem: Risk Barbara Williams, Salt Lake City, Utah

Risk

The llama makes no sound

Standing rigid In his wispy collar of fake fur,

Staring with glass beads, And smiling with doll's mouth.

He seems as lifeless As the stuffed toys

In my room

So I know he won't bite me

If I feed him.

Will he?

Barbara Williams

Teaching Risk?grades 3-6 Often the meaning of the poem is with held until an ironic twist at the very end. Even more frequently, a poem has

several layers of meaning and says

more than one thing.

Ask students to identify the child's emotion in the first 10 lines of the

poem. How does that emotion differ from the one in the last line? What was at risk? Merely the child's safety or his/her illusions as well?

Ask students about some of the per sonal risks that they have taken in their lives. How have these risks changed their perceptions of the world?

Recapitulation: Nearly always the ti tle of a poem will serve as a clue to its

meaning. Ask students to go back now to the title of this poem to see how the title reveals the poem's contents.

Perhaps it will help teachers in dis

cussing this poem with students to learn how I got the idea to write it. I

was visiting a petting zoo when I saw a child of about 4 approaching a llama with food purchased from a dispenser. The llama stood so still he resembled a stuffed toy until the girl extended her hand. When he jerked his head down to reach for the food he startled her so

badly that she ran crying to her mother.

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The CLASSROOM Reading Teacher 701

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