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20 teaching ideas for poetry

Mix ‘n’ match. Play poetry terms mix and match. Hand out some poetic
terms and examples all mixed up. Get students to match the term to the
correct example. There is a Matching whizzy available on Teachit for this
activity. Simply type in Poetry terms mix-and-match or search by filename
8912.

Show relevant objects. Bring in a selection of objects that relate to a poem


you’re studying and ask students to predict what the poem might be about.

Play Top trumps. Students can rank things like language (very informal to
very formal) or form and structure (highly structured to free verse). There is a
Teachit Top trumps template (of the same name) to help with this!

Chop it up. Give students a poem chopped up, either by individual words or
by line, or stanza. They then have to put them in an order they like. This is a
great activity for introducing a poem.

Replace ‘meaningful’ words. Give students a copy of a poem with some of


the ‘meaningful’ words removed. Students then fill in the blanks with their own
ideas.

Bang out the rhythm! Get students to bang out the rhythm of a poem as
you’re reading it. A lot of noise but great fun and improves understanding too!

DIY anthology. Get students to create their own anthology of poetry. This
might include getting them to choose poems they like and writing an
introduction/commentary for some selected poems. This is a great revision
activity.

Performance poetry. When students have written a poem, ask them to


perform it in groups, thinking about the rhythm and movement of the poem.

Take it outside! In groups of four or five students walk around the school/an
outside area and take turns to stop. At the point they’ve stopped, students
write a line of poetry to reflect where they’re standing and what’s around them!
The poetry needn’t be literal, but could incorporate senses and emotions.

Poetry Place. Pay a visit to Teachit’s Poetry Place for some activity ideas
and resources. Our resident poetry maestro Trevor Millum keeps the content
fresh and the ideas creative!

© www.teachit.co.uk 2013 21498 Page 1 of 2


20 teaching ideas for poetry
Infer. Use an inference rectangle to encourage students to look at the poem
from different angles and ask questions about it. Teachit has a handy
template (of the same name) for this.

Group ‘meaningful’ words. Cut up the meaningful words from the poem and
group them into themes. You can also do this task interactively using
Teachit’s Magnet whizzy.

Organise a poetry slam. Either do this for your class or, if you’re feeling
ambitious (and energetic), for the whole year group!

Play Pictionary. After studying a collection of poetry, give pairs the titles of
the poems face down. They take it in turns to ‘draw’ the poem and their
partner has to guess the title. They could either choose to draw their
interpretation of the whole poem or choose a selection of metaphors/similes
pertinent to the poem.

Haikus. Give students some lines of a Haiku that you’ve pre-prepared and
get them to move it around to make their own Haiku. Use Teachit’s Haiku
Whiz to get your students started with writing their own Haikus.

Diamond nine. Allocate students nine statements about the poem and ask
them to make a diamond nine ranking grid. This is a flexible activity and can
be used to focus on a number of different areas, for example, which theme is
most important.

Play Happy Families. This is great when you’re studying a cluster of poems.
Each poem could have five cards, and students need to collect the ‘family’.
Categories could include: title, author, central theme, long/short quotation.

Inspirational images. Display a series of images on the board and use these
to inspire students’ own poetry writing. You could also get students to find
some images that they think relate to the poem and explain their choices.

Storyboarding. Read the poem and then storyboard each of the stanzas or
freeze frame each of the stanzas to encourage students to show a good
understanding of what’s happening in the poem.

Role play. For poems with ‘characters’ get students to perform interviews,
write letters/diary entries or re-write the poem from a different character’s
perspective.

© www.teachit.co.uk 2013 21498 Page 2 of 2

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