Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 8: Sharing with an Audience

Students could share their poetry with a variety of audiences by:

• Visiting a school or class of younger students and reading poems to the kids there.


• Taking a field trip to a retirement home and presenting poems to the residents.


• Taking a field trip to the children's ward of a hospital and acting out poems for the patients.


• Having a poetry slam that includes several classes or several schools in the area.

Think about your individual community and what is possible. Think about who might benefit from the poetry readings (in addition to your students, of course). Brainstorm audience ideas with your classes.

If there is a community service component to the school's curriculum, groups of students could visit different locations in the community, based on their interest.

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 7: Formal Paper

Students could write a formal paper analyzing a poem in detail: form, content, and background.

This could be instead of or in addition to teaching a poem in a class presentation.

Alternative activity: Students could write a paper, a journal entry, or a poem about writing and reading poetry.

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 6: Teach a Poem

Have each student present a poem to the class.

After reading the poem aloud, students can discuss the following:

• Author - Who is the author? What is his or her history? When did he or she write this poem? Give additional pertinent author background information.


• Figurative Speech - metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole


• Poetic Devices - onomatopoeia, repetition, alliteration


• Rhyme Scheme - Does the poem rhyme? If so, which lines rhyme? How many lines does the poem contain? How many stanzas? Is this poem in a particular form such as a sonnet or a limerick?


• Meter - What is th meter of the poem? Iambic? Trochaic? How many syllables are accented per line?


• Analysis of the Poem - What does it mean? How is that meaning conveyed? Could there be alternate interpretations?

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 5: Poetry Mugs, Shirts, etc.

Students can create many items with their poetry and artwork:

• mugs


• coasters


• plates


• greeting cards


• t-shirts


• tote bags


• posters

Here are a few companies where kits can be purchased or where items can be designed online:

• Makit - http://www.makhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifitonline.com/


• Zazzle - http://www.zazzle.com/


• Cafepress - http://www.cafepress.com/

Office supply, photography, and department stores often offer similar services.

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 4: "Publishing"

Give your students options. Have them publish their best work by:

• submitting it to a newspaper or magazine


• reading it at a coffee house or in another public forum


• displaying it in a public place


• giving it as a gift to another person


• printing it on a shirt or a mug


• putting it on a website

Show students there are many forms of "publishing."

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 3: Class Poetry Compilation

Create a compilation book of your students' best poems. Put a copy in the library for the entire school to check out.

This could also be used as a resource to give next year's students (or another class) ideas for poems they might want to write themselves.

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 2: Literary Magazine

Publish a class literary magazine. Make a copy for each student.

If you are feeling adventurous and have a small budget, layout the magazine professionally and make copies available for sale to parents, peers, and members of the community.

Students could be involved in editing, layout, printing, and sales.

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 1: Coffee House

Have a class coffee house (or even better a school-wide coffee house) where students can read out poems written by themselves or by others.

Parents and the community could be invited to participate as audience members.

Poetry Unit Starter 5: Web Activities

Sign up the class for the computer lab. Visit a poetry website where students can either find a poem they want to share with the class or where students can complete poetry activities (such as www.gigglepoetry.com or www.poetry4kids.com).

Poetry Unit Starter 4: Poetry Free-Write

This activity is done in three parts:

1. Ask students to take 5-10 minutes to write half a page about poetry.


2. Instruct them to circle any 10 words. (Don't tell them what the words are for.)


3. After they have circled the words, ask them to create a poem using the ten circled words. They may add 3 additional words if needed.

Variation: Display one or a few pieces of artwork. Have students do stream of consciousness writing for 5 minutes about one of the pieces of artwork. Have them circle 8 words or phrases in their writing. Then students can create a poem from the circled words and phrases.

Poetry Unit Starter 3: Poem Sharing

Here are a few ideas about starting a poetry unit by reading poems aloud:

1. Read a good poem to students.


2. Read lyrics to a popular song that most of the kids will know. Choose a song that sounds poetic when read.


3. Ask students to bring in a poem they like to share with the class.


4. Ask students to bring in lyrics to their favorite songs to share with the class. Make sure you tell them not to bring in anything with explicit lyrics.


5. Distribute books of poetry to students. Give them 5-10 minutes to look through the books. Have each student find one poem to read aloud to the class. (This activity can be done in the classroom or in the school media center.)


6. Have the class read a poem for more than one reader such as the poems in Paul Fleischman's Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.

Note: I had a student with low-level reading skills who appreciated the opportunity to pick a short poem from a book that he could practice with a classmate, then read aloud to the entire class. It was one of the rare moments that this student participated in a reading activity involving the whole class.

Poetry Unit Starter 2: "Magnetic Poetry"

Cut words and phrases out of newspapers and magazines. (You can laminate these for later use.) You should probably have about 15-20 words/phrases per group/student.

Each group should arrange a poem out of the words and phrases like they would with "Magnetic Poetry." (It isn't necessary to use all the words, but they should use as many as possible.)

Then each group can share their poem with the rest of the class.

Variation: Have students cut out at least 20 headlines from newspapers. They should arrange the words on a sheet of paper to create a poem. They do not have to use all the words. They should glue down their poems on a sheet of paper and sign it.

Poetry Unit Starter 1: I Wish Class Poem

Ask each student to complete the sentence "I wish ________________" on a strip of paper. Collect the strips. Shuffle them. Then write out each line on the overhead to create a collaborative class poem.

Other sentence ideas:

1. I wish...


2. I am...


3. I like...


4. I like to...


5. I wonder...


6. I think about...


7. If I had a million dollars, I would...


8. If I could change anything, I would...


9. (pick a color) is like...


10. I am happy when...


11. I am (any emotion) when...


12. If I could go anywhere, I would...


13. I have learned that...


14. I like (season), because...


15. It's (season), so...


16. If I were an animal, I'd be a ______________, because...


17. If I were a car, I'd be a ________________, because...


18. If I were a place, I'd be __________________, because...

Newspapers

If you are doing a newspaper unit, your students might find it interesting to do a study of how different ethnic groups are represented in the newspaper.

• How many stories members of a group are mentioned in
• What types of stories members are mentioned in
• How members of a group are represented in the stories
• What sections of the paper represent members of a group the most
• Compare the amount and type of representation in the newspaper with representation in other forms of media
• Compare the amount of representation in the newspaper with the group's percentage in the area's population
• If a person only read the newspaper and never came into contact with people, what might he or she think about each ethnic group?
  

It would be interesting to see what types of conclusions students draw from a study such as this.

Students could break the data down further and look at how men and women of particular groups are represented. Or they could look at different age groups.