After falling in love with words, students are ready to learn how to use phrases to paint pictures with words. Since poems are usually a compilation of rhythmic phrases, poetry offers endless examples of how phrases can create vivid images.
Using Idioms
While working with phrases, students can learn about the dual meanings of idioms. An activity to teach students about idioms utilizes Fred Gwynne's book, The King who Rained [Windmill Books, 1970]. After listening to the book, each student selects an idiom and illustrates its meanings.
Using 12 x 8 construction paper, students make a hamburger fold. On the first half of the paper, they illustrate what the idiom says; and on the second half, what the idiom means. For example, a student might choose the idiom, “bawling your eyes out.” For the first picture, the student could draw a crying girl whose eyes have fallen to the ground; and for the second picture, a girl crying uncontrollably.
Writing Flows With Alliteration
After reading alliterative examples from poetry, teachers can explain that authors use alliteration to create rhythm, making words flow. For starters, students can recite a few alliterative tongue twisters like Peter Piper.
Another activity to get students using alliteration is to create a class book. After selecting an alliterative classroom mascot, like Polite Polly, students cut out ads that begin with the same letter as the mascot's name. In this instance, the advertised products would start with "P." Then, as a home learning activity, students create an alliterative phrase with the mascot and the product. For example, "Polite Polly prefers puffy Pillsbury pancakes."
To compile the class book, the teacher punches holes in each student’s page and then uses rings to put the pages together. To increase awareness of alliteration, the teacher can also offer extra credit to students who find examples of alliteration in their own reading.
Hyperboles Paint Pictures
Teachers discuss how authors sometimes use hyperboles, or exaggerations, to paint strong pictures in the readers’ minds. For example, rather than say “the frightened boy jumped high,” the author might say “the frightened boy leapt a mile high.” Again, the teacher can offer an incentive for students to find examples while they are reading.
Similes and Metaphors
After sharing examples of similes and metaphors, teachers discuss how these poetic devices make readers see what the author means. For example, “the flying saucer was as flat as a pancake,” paints a more vivid picture than “the flat flying saucer.”
To help students practice writing similes, the teacher fills brown paper bags with items with interesting textures and odors like cooked spaghetti and uncooked broccoli. While passing the bags around the classroom, students use their senses of touch and smell to learn about the items. Afterwards, they write similes or metaphors to describe what they discovered about particular items. For example, “the item in bag one is as slimy as a worm,” or “it is as smelly as a sewer.”
Qualities of Effective Poetry
If teachers want students to write poems, they need to expose them to a variety of poetry. As teachers share their favorites, students can discover these qualities of effective poetry:
- Rhythm vs. rhyme – not sacrificing meaning for rhyme
- Focus or theme
- Imagery
- Symbolism
- Figurative Language
Favorite Poems
To learn to write poetry, students need to read a myriad of poems. As they skim through poetry books, students can select one of their favorites. Each student can copy and illustrate their favorite poem to share with classmates. During sharing, students can again discuss the qualities of effective poetry.
Creating Colorful Images
To show the importance of imagery in poetry, teachers can read a few of Mary O'Neill's color poems from Hailstones and Halibut Bones [Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 1990]. Afterwards, students can create a class color poem. During this activity, students select a color and use the steps of the writing process to create images of the color. Here is a partial example that can be used by both teachers and students:
What is Black?
Ties worn for a formal, elegant dinner
Slaves traveling by ship to America
A widow's veil
Before selecting a color for their own poems, students should use their crayons to sketch a few pictures and then decide which color they associate with the strongest feelings and images. After selecting a color, the students use a crayon of that color to draw many, varied, and unusual pictures that are represented by that color.
Ideas should be both concrete and abstract. For example, blue might represent the stars' background on the American flag or the feeling of sadness. After the prewriting activity, students continue by drafting, revising, editing and publishing their poems.
To teach students to write poetry, teachers should model and then have students write class and individual poems. After finding a topic that they hate or love, students can paint a picture with words to share their strong feelings with the audience. By learning to incorporate poetic devices, students can learn to describe the usual in unusual ways.
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