April is National Poetry Month, which I love, because I love teaching poetry. However, this definitely isn’t the April the I think most teachers imagined. Even being stuck at the house quarantined from the coronavirus, I wanted to acknowledge the month anyway and share some tips and techniques that I use when teaching poetry.
Many teachers shy away from poetry because it is intimidating. Many people do not read poetry on a daily basis (myself included) and feel like they don’t know enough about it to teach it. However, poetry can be really easy. It can be a great tool for many literacy skills, including vocabulary and fluency, and writing.
BENEFITS OF POETRY
Part of why poetry is great for students is its versatility. There are many different types of poetry, but as mentioned above, it can have many uses in the classroom. Here are some of my favorite literacy skills to teach with poetry:
- Fluency: Most poems are short, which makes them less intimidating to struggling readers, who can use them for repeated reading to help improve fluency. Also, because they are reading an entire poem, it makes it more interesting than just reading the same paragraph or two of a story over and over again.
- Vocabulary: Because of their short length and sometimes specific structure, poets rely on a wide range of vocabulary in order to say exactly what they need to in the space. They may need a certain rhyming word. Or a word with a specific number of syllables. That means poetry often has vocabulary rarely found in other types of text.
- Writing: At first, students might think of writing poetry as scary because they are unfamiliar with it. But poetry can actually be great for struggling writers especially. Some poems follow a very specific structure, which can be beneficial for students who have a hard time getting words down on the paper. Again, poems are often short, which means less words to write overall and length can be hard for students.
TIPS FOR TEACHING POETRY
Ok – now you know the benefits, but you still might not know where to begin, so lets dive in to my tips for teaching poetry. That’s exactly where I begin – at the beginning. I teach poetry for several weeks as a unit, and I start with making an anchor chart analyzing what poetry is.
Students brainstorm with me to help figure out how poetry is different (or the same) as other types of texts. This helps them get a grasp on what poetry is, and then we can add to the chart later as we learn more about it.
I personally teach poetry both in reading and writing mini-lessons, but you could alter that to fit your method of instruction. I like to have students begin writing their own poems the first day, so we start with a simple acrostic. Most students have written acrostics before and didn’t know that it was a form of poetry, so it’s a great starter piece.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
From there, I launch into teaching figurative language. I do this in a series of days, and it gives students a chance to practice reading different types of poetry while looking for figurative language. We also write poems using figurative language, such as alliteration, or a poem with personification.
I truly love figurative language, and will write a separate post about that later on. Also, click here to see a series of videos I did on figurative language.
RHYMING and RHYTHM
After figurative language, we start on rhyming poems. We look at the structure of poems, how they’re broken up into stanzas, and some of the types of stanzas that they can have (couple, triplet, quatrain). We then discuss rhyme scheme, and how poems can be written in ABA, ABB, ABAB, etc. rhyme scheme. At the same time, we also write poems that rhyme. I usually start with a simple poem that uses a few stanzas of couplets.
Next, I teach about poetic rhythm and how poets sometimes follow a certain rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables. We discuss what those terms mean and practice emphasizing stressed syllables in our names – AN-gie, CAMP-a-NELL-o, and then do the same emphasized reading of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by exaggerating the stressed and unstressed rhythms. We then write limericks or clerihews, which have a more complicated rhythm (meter) and rhyme scheme.
Finally, we end with a few lessons on word choice, how authors have to choose very specific words to fit the purpose of the poem, and then a bit about themes in poems, and end with writing a haiku.
Throughout these few weeks, students read and write many forms of poetry, helping them achieve fluency, vocabulary, and better writing. It also helps build confidence in writing a completely new genre. Many times the struggling writers are the ones that feel the most success because they are able to do well in this genre versus some others.
CELEBRATING OUR POEMS
As we write out poems, I usually display each on a large bulletin. Students illustrate the poems also, so it becomes a great chance for them to read each others and see their artwork. It also encourages them to do their best work. BONUS: It’s a super easy interactive bulletin board that takes very little work to prepare and maintain. I literally glue clothespins to the bulletin board with students’ names on them, and then just clip each poem up there as we write it.
When all the poems are completed, We add a cover and bind them into a book for them to take home.
FAVORITE POEM BOOKS
I honestly don’t have that many poem books, but there are a few that I love. For the purpose of the poetry unit, I like to have some poetry anthologies, which contain a lot of different types of poems. This makes it easy for students to read a variety in one book. I like The Random House Book of Poetry for Children for this (multiple copies is best)
Shel Silverstein is always a favorite of students. HOWEVER, he comes with a big disclaimer for me. Silverstein’s poems are very negative and pessimistic. Children think they’re hilarious, but I do always talk about the tone of them before I turn them loose reading, just so they’re aware that the tone is not representative of all poetry. Also, if you ever want to show a youtube video of him for students to get to know the author, please preview it first! His language is not always appropriate for kids.
My very favorite is the picture book The Circus Ship, by Chris Van Dusen. It’s a great story with awesome illustrations, but it is also written in verse and contains many types of figurative language. I never hear anyone else talk about it, so I try to praise it as much as possible.
Okay. That’s it for now. I have written all of my tips for teaching poetry into complete lessons and student activity pages, as well as included pages for writing the different types of poetry. You can find them all below in my best-selling poetry unit.
