Does teaching poetry stress you out? Try these 6 strategies for teaching poetry to get learners to fall in love with poetry.
Use Poetry Templates:
Many styles of poetry use a certain format. Using templates allows learners to really focus on word choice. Learners don't have to focus on the structure with templates. Giving access to a thesaurus and dictionary will help writers find the best words to fit their poem.
Integrate Other Subjects:
Poetry doesn’t have to be limited to just literacy lessons. You can easily integrate poetry into the content areas. For example, in math you can write diamante poems about the different operations, bio poems about shapes, and acrostics for key vocabulary terms. You can get plenty of suggestions in this
Use Close Reads
A poetry close read can help readers make inferences and connections. This simple close read guide can be used with any poem. The questions guide readers to understanding the parts of poetry, identify key terms, and search for main idea.
Use Poetry in Lessons and Centers
Make poetry part of your guided reading lessons and literacy centers. Keep it up and running with a poetry book basket and the poetry close read. Want poetry book suggestions?
Do you want poetry literacy centers that are already prepared? These monthly poems will allow for you to cover all holidays and seasonal themes. A test-prep/close read guide, written response, poetry writing lesson, and content area connection is provided for each poem.
Read Poetry During Read Aloud Time
Use poetry as part of your daily read aloud. Poetry is perfect for read alouds especially on those days when you are running short on time. Check out this article to get suggestions of poems that will keep your students reading poetry all year long. Each month includes a FREE set of questions and activities.
Found Poetry
Use found poetry to help students identify the main idea of a passage. Have students highlight the important words and phrases as they read. Then cut out the highlighted words and organize them into a poem.
Create a Wall Display
Keeping up a poetry word wall is a great way to help students learn those important terms. Put it up near your literacy center. This poetry word wall has terms and examples. You can color to meet your classroom decor or for student notebooks. Or just print and go.
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