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Teacher Articles
Teacher Created Materials
Practical Poetry
by Megan Crossin
Subject: English, Poetry
Grade Level: Any
Objective: To have students become more enthusiastic about writing poetry by using a
practical approach.
Time needed: 1 - 2 lessons
Materials: Pen and paper for each student, things to taste and smell, blindfolds
(one between two). You can make these from old t-shirts or any soft
fabric.
Instructions:
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This lesson is about using the senses to write poetry. Have your students sit silently in class and jot down any noises they hear. There doesn't need to be any order or sentence structure, just rough notes.
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Next, take students outside and have them sit in pairs. Have them pick a view where can look and write everything they see. Some students may find it more interesting to take a different point of view. For example, they may lay on their backs and look up, lay on their fronts and look into the ground/grass, or look around from the top of playground equipment. Again, these should be only rough notes of what they see.
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After that, have one student in each pair blindfold the other and tell their partner what they hear. The partner should simply write down the student's words, without commenting. After about five minutes of listening, have them switch over.
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Back in class, it is time to form the ideas into a poem. Using the words they have written as prompts, they should form a short but coherent poem. For example:
Ropes creaking, complaining, straining.
Feet running, smacking, clumping,
People calling, crying, cheering,
Water rising, the boat is leaving.
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For another poetry exercise, you may also like to try touch and taste. Once again, have the students blindfolded. Have them touch and/or taste certain things. Ask them to create a poem by writing down what they tasted, how it made them feel, and what it made them think of.
- Though smell is more difficult, this exercise can be done by having students think of their favorite scent and imagine it is on a journey. Where did it come from? Who can smell it? Alternatively, they can write with association. What does the smell make them think of? How does it make them feel?
In the end, students will have great prompts for their poems that come from their own ideas, while having fun generating them.
Megan is a secondary teacher who has worked in Australia and in international schools abroad. She is currently living in France as a freelance writer. You can read more about her and her work at www.freewebs.com/megancrossin.
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