Teaching Poetry: Great Ideas from the Classroom
I found this website and forum useful because the ideas contributed by teachers had been used, were engaging, fun and seemed to be assessable when it came to introducing lower secondary students to the concept of poetry, meaning and imagery.
Contributed by Norah Morgan
Students draw the images in the poems they read. Close reading allows the visual depiction the imagery of the poem, it helps students visualise and students start to get an idea of how words form pictures” in a reader’s mind as part of meaning making in the poem.
Contributed by: Chris Penfold
Students are given a great big pile of newspapers and magazines from which they can cut out any word(s), phrase(s) or headline(s). They put their pile of cut outs and words into a personal file from which they randomly select what they feel like sticking onto an A3 sheet of paper.
Students have quite a lot of fun doing the activity and start to see connections and meaning from the way they fit words together
Steven Figg
Multi-voice speaking: Students enjoy performing poetry in small groups and I believe that multi-voice speaking should be an integral part of our poetry courses. "Hist Whist" by e.e.cummings, ‘Talking After Christmas Blues" by Adrian Henri and "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll always work well. Readers’ Theatre and choral speaking are other effective approaches.
Form writing: Writing poetry using a framework or model is a useful activity. One of my favourites is a three-stage poem. The first stanza begins with the line, "When I was a child"; the second stanza begins with the line "When I am an adult"; and the third stanza begins with the line, "Caught between two worlds." Ask students to write five or six lines for each stanza
Contributed by Norah Morgan
Students draw the images in the poems they read. Close reading allows the visual depiction the imagery of the poem, it helps students visualise and students start to get an idea of how words form pictures” in a reader’s mind as part of meaning making in the poem.
Contributed by: Chris Penfold
Students are given a great big pile of newspapers and magazines from which they can cut out any word(s), phrase(s) or headline(s). They put their pile of cut outs and words into a personal file from which they randomly select what they feel like sticking onto an A3 sheet of paper.
Students have quite a lot of fun doing the activity and start to see connections and meaning from the way they fit words together
Steven Figg
Multi-voice speaking: Students enjoy performing poetry in small groups and I believe that multi-voice speaking should be an integral part of our poetry courses. "Hist Whist" by e.e.cummings, ‘Talking After Christmas Blues" by Adrian Henri and "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll always work well. Readers’ Theatre and choral speaking are other effective approaches.
Form writing: Writing poetry using a framework or model is a useful activity. One of my favourites is a three-stage poem. The first stanza begins with the line, "When I was a child"; the second stanza begins with the line "When I am an adult"; and the third stanza begins with the line, "Caught between two worlds." Ask students to write five or six lines for each stanza
