HOW TO INTRODUCE YOUR STUDENTS TO THE WORLD OF POETRY 

To begin, for homework, ask your students to make lists of five things that are meaningful to them in their everyday landscapes, such as objects in their bedrooms or things they see on the way home from school. Have them answer these five questions:

Who was the last person you thought of before going to bed last night?Who was the first person you thought of when you woke up this morning?What song lyric can’t you get out of your head right now?What was the happiest day or moment of your life?What was the saddest day or moment of your life?

When the class meets again, students will have made their lists and answered the questions. Organize them into pairs. Ask each pair of students to swap lists and answers so that everyone has a different person’s list and answers. Ask students to write five- to ten-line poems using three words, objects, or descriptions from their partner’s lists and three of their partner’s answers to the questions. Essentially, they’re making poems out of lived experiences and using their imaginations. Why not? But let’s not stop there.

When the students finish their poems, ask them to read the poems to each other in pairs. Next, each set of pairs will write one poem collaboratively. How will this happen? Each student should pick three or four favorite lines from his or her partner’s poem, which was written from his or her own list and answers. Then each pair should work together to put the six to eight chosen lines from both poems together into one poem or, as I like to call it, “remix” the lines into one poem.

Encourage the students to share their collaborative poems with the entire class by reading them aloud. This way, they will get confident with whatever they do. Good luck in spreading the gospel of poetry