Poetry And Teaching
Poetry brings language alive and that's beneficial to any classroom, especially a language classroom.
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I’ve been a poet some 45 years. You can find lots on my personal blog, if interested. Or see my poem “So You Want To Be A Teacher, Eh?” Almost a classic now.
However, I’ve been very interested over many years, as to the ways teachers can harness the power of the written and spoken “poetic” word to benefit their students.
Here let me outline a few ways that might inspire you to bring poetry into your lessons. See all our resources and video lessons related to poetry, for further inspiration. More references at the end of this article.
Poetry as a topic to discuss X. Poetry allows us to access deep emotions and its the perfect vehicle for a SEL - social emotional learning lesson. Here is a fav. poem that I made into a video. Use with the lesson discussion / response sheet provided. It is about how we keep hidden deep down our own frailties. But a poem can be a bridge to discuss many forbidden or passionate, intense issues.
Poetry as a prompt. For beginners, it might be hard to get poetry out of students, as output. However, here is an easy way. Put students into groups of 5 or 6. Give out slips of paper. Provide each group with a theme/topic. Ask student to write down one phrase or sentence related to the topic. Collect them and for each group say, “I’m now going to read a poem from the group”. Read out loud the title/theme and then each slip of paper. Clap. Voila, a poem. You’ll be surprised how powerful they are!
Poetry as a template. Use a template for students to organize their thoughts poetically and facilitate the writing of a poem. So many types - Haiku, Anagram, Diamond etc … Provide the template and give students time to complete them. See our book full of templates or / and especially the idea of using grammar poem templates.
Poetry as rhyme. Rhyme can be a hard skill for second language learners. However, it is so beneficial. Provide students with short sentences to which they must respond with a reply that rhymes. Provide classic examples to start - like “Roses are red.- …….” See this exercise for an example.
Other resources:
1. Spoken Verse Youtube channel. This is where the above video comes from.
2. Billy Collins channel of animated poems.
3. Poem Hunter: Get poems on a particular subject / topic (click them on the left). Print and use in class. Flickr Poet is also a wonderfully creative online poem/image maker.
4. PBS Favorite poem. Regular people read a poem.