Students adore poetry activities.

It might be challenging to get secondary pupils to read and compose poetry (and appreciate it). You have to get creative if you're a teacher like me who doesn't care for poetry as much as, well, pretty much anything else. I know that my pupils deserve the best instruction possible, and I can't offer it to them if I'm not enthusiastic about the subject. So. I've gathered some resources to help students engage in meaningful (but entertaining!) writing and discussion. Continue reading to learn about the most popular poetry activities among my students.

1.POETRY INSPIRATION FROM NONFICTION

I enjoy shape and collage poetry, but there are times when I want to push my high school students a little harder. Because they are interested in concrete poetry, I incorporate a crot, which is a combination of concrete and found poetry. (It gets its name from the fact that it resembles a brief, purposely broken sentence, which students can use to compose it!)

I encourage my pupils to produce a creative poem using nonfiction source material as inspiration. Students are writing informative research texts in a creative way in this way. It can, however, be used as a response to reading fictional works as well.

Critical thinking and true reflection on the topic and significant points conveyed in the original source are required when writing a crot (s). As they shape their bits of thought and research into an inspired work of poetry, students are urged to consider symbolism, art, and white space. Of course, students must understand grammar rules in order to intentionally break them. It's also great for language enrichment and author craft in this sense.

2. COUPLES TEXTING

I ask students to write texting couplets just to get them thinking about rhythm and rhyme. This task appeals to teenagers since, as we all know, text messaging is a language they are quite familiar with. Is it appropriate to ask students to write poetry? Meh. Toss them a challenge: compose poetry in the form of text messages. Now we're having a conversation.

Students send and receive text messages in the shape of poetry couplets in this exercise. I advise them to make it sound like a friendly dialogue. It's entertaining to both model and observe.

Ask students to highlight a specific language element, such as figurative language, grammatical ideas, or vocabulary / word choice, and align it to standards.

3. STUDY MUSIC

Showing how music is poetry will pique the interest of even the most apathetic students. Choose a popular song with literature aspects you can examine and use this free music analysis sheet as a discussion starter. While you're working, don't forget to listen to music!

4. AMPLIFIER FOR MOOD AND TONE

Analogies and metaphors are powerful teaching tools. Because students often struggle with mood and tone, I devised a new way for them to approach these topics. Students use a music amplifier to assess how the mood and tone of a tale or poem vary throughout a literary work.

The assignment can be found here. It necessitates analytical thinking. Additionally, students complete a writing extension activity that encourages them to support their analysis with evidence.

5. POETRY INSPIRATION FROM IMAGES

When my students use images to enliven their writing, they always produce their best work. You'll find thirteen different ways to use pictures to inspire students to write poetry in this post.

By appealing to students' interests first, wordless picture books, old family photographs, political cartoons, iconic paintings, and even hashtags can scaffold the poetry writing process.

If you want to attempt having your kids compose picture-based poetry but aren't sure where to begin, you can start with this free picture-based poetry resource.

6. ONE PAGER OF POETRY

True, poems contain far more meaning than the — usually — limited number of words they contain. It can be difficult to assist kids in unpacking its significance.

With these visually appealing, step-by-step graphic organisers, students can scaffold their analysis of poetry and music. Use them to encourage kids to write longer, more thoughtful responses.

An entertaining one-pager that focuses on breaking down figurative language, form, structure, and diction is one method we might scaffold students' poetry analysis. To assist students in preparing their literary analysis answer, use visually appealing, step-by-step graphic organisers.

If you're having trouble getting your kids to respond to poetry, try tackling it from this structured, visually appealing perspective.

7.GAME OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Figurative language abounds in poetry. We play Figurative Language Truth or Dare to start kids brainstorming before they write their own poem or analyse the author's style of an existing poem. This game enables my pupils to consider poetry and figurative language to be enjoyable, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Students feel more confident when asked to carefully read a piece, focusing specifically at how the poet employs literary devices to build his or her thoughts and style, after playing truth or dare to refresh their recollections of common poetic language.

Don't worry if the prospect of teaching poetry makes you feel overwhelmed, unimpressed, or uninterested. Poetry hasn't always been one of my favourite subjects in school. My unit has become more relevant and fulfilling once I began including more differentiated, engaging aspects. Try out some of these exercises with your kids, and let us know what your favourite ways to teach poetry are in the comments.

8.POETRY IN THE DARK

Begin with a page from any text and encourage students to construct a poem using words from that text. They use a marker to black out any words they don't want in their poetry. The leftover words are then rewritten into a poem.

Before they begin marking through words, have pupils plan what they want to black out by lightly underlining it in pencil. The only requirement is that they use the words in the sequence in which they occur.

Students love using materials that at first look appear dull, such as pages from abandoned grammar books. They enjoy turning a mundane situation into a humorous poem.

Blackout poetry is a fantastic place for beginner poets to start because the words are already on the paper, so all pupils have to do is decide which ones to utilise. This strategy can also be used as an interdisciplinary project in which students use text from a specific piece of content to compose a poem about that piece of content, such as using the Bill of Rights to compose a poem about the Revolutionary War.

9.POETRY TO PROSE

Students write down their poem ideas without regard for format. They are encouraged to write about whatever feeling or theme they want to express in their poetry. The pupils then convert the narrative into poetry by following four steps:

Decide what emotion or idea you want to communicate in your poem, and keep it in mind as you revise.

Eliminate unnecessary words and phrases to reduce the word count by at least half. You should keep only the most important words and phrases and delete the rest.

Make your title out of the phrase you believe is the most important.

Rearrange the remaining words and phrases to better convey your message. Consider using a noun, adjective, or verb to begin and end each line.

10.THE WORST POEM I'VE EVER WRITTEN

Ask pupils to compose the worst poem they've ever written about something they care about. Then have them look over it again, making changes to make it something they're proud to share. This relieves the stress of getting something down on paper. They virtually always realise that their "worst poem" isn't all that horrible once they get over the stress of deciding what to write and just start writing.

11.SUCCESSES ARE CELEBRATED

Students frequently comment after completing a few of these tasks on how astonished they are at how many poems they wrote and how much fun they had. I complete the unit with a poetry café, when students share their poems with their classmates and eat some refreshments while doing so. Making poetry writing exercises simple and accessible can help sceptics become poets.

12.POETRY MADE FROM SCRAMBLED WORDS

A pile of words cut out on individual sheets of paper is the starting point for this method. They can be teacher-selected words or words gathered from the students. Without adding new words, students organise the words to create any poem they want. This concept teaches students that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing a poem, and everyone leaves class with a finished poem. Students enjoy watching me move words around, change my mind, and wish for things that I don't have when I model this for them.

The word-scamble poetry method comes in a variety of forms. One includes assigning the same set of words to all students and seeing how many distinct concepts can be generated with those same phrases. Another method involves assigning distinct groups of words to pupils and allowing them to swap them. A last variant adds a little teacher thievery: walk around the classroom periodically and deliver new words or take some words away.

13.WORDS TO EXPRESS MY LIFE

Students are challenged to write a storey about themselves in the same number of words as their age. This allows pupils to practise word choice while also relieving some of the burden because the work is brief by nature.

Using a variable cap on the number of words that students may use is a variation of this strategy. Students were required to write about a certain topic in less than five or ten words.