I've been working with a Grade 5 class lately on a poetry unit. We had read and practiced writing acrostic and free verse poetry before I arrived this week. I especially loved the free verse component, and celebrated along with the teacher as the students experimented with similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition and more. This past week I showed them some forms of concrete poetry, along with various ways to represent their words visually, including filling a shape, creating the line of the shape, and writing words to demonstrate their meaning. The first step in the lesson involved handing out some examples of concrete poetry. Students had a couple of minutes to read their example, and then turn and talk with the members of their group to discuss all of the examples in their group, and how they were similar and different. After a class discussion of their findings, I modeled how I might rewrite the free verse poem "The Snowman" that the students and I had written together the previous week: The Snowman Three balls of snow, rolled with love and then stacked, like glasses in a cupboard. He stands watch over our yard, a silent soldier, his cheerful smile frozen in place. The students each chose an idea from our brainstorming of winter topics that we had created earlier in the unit, and began composing. They were very excited to get to the visual representation of their words, and were super engaged to try out various forms. Here are a few samples (with names blacked out): I'm quite pleased with their first attempts, and can't wait to see what else they produce as they continue to write, revise and share. They still have lots of time to work on this during the week ahead. Their teacher is planning to have each student choose their favourite poem to publish and frame as a Christmas gift. Wouldn't that make a great addition to their home Christmas decor?
Have you ever tried concrete poetry writing with your students? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below.
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