Poetry writing is often avoided by teachers and disliked by students. I’m a firm believer that it doesn’t have to be this way!
As a matter of fact, I believe we can change any outlook on writing if we teach students all of the skills needed for each type of writing!
On today’s episode, I start by reviewing the first three steps from last week’s episode.
- Plan for poetry teaching to be a process—not a one and done event.
- Read aloud from poetry during reading, content areas, unit studies, etc.
- Use fun, whimsical, silly, and enjoyable poetry books for read aloud.
- Use familiar yet simple verses for them to highlight and code the rhyme scheme and syllabication with you. (Give them copies of the ones you will teach rhyme scheme from.)
- Teach the two parts of rhyme scheme using highlighters to code the rhyming words at the end of the lines.
In today’s episode, I cover the next six steps I follow in teaching poetry writing to middle schoolers:
- Have students fill in rhyming words boxes extensively.
- Use couplets with A-A rhyme scheme and short lines at first.
- Have students finish simple couplets and A-A-B-B poems.
-easy rhymes that are familiar (“Humpty Dumpty” and “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” etc)
-simple lines that you make up for them to finish
- Then have them move into original A-A poetry writing.
- Move into A-B-A-B poems that you finish together.
- Then move to original A-B-A-B poems that they write alone or with you as a group.
Check out my creative, fun, engaging month-long Christmas writing books! They’re available at the LAL store!
