Doing Poetry: Writing Like Readers

Students read and comment on each other's poems.

A soccer player breathlessly follows her favorite team’s match, and the next day at lunch, she’s trying the cool move that won the game. A guitarist listens to his favorite artist’s new release on repeat, eyes closed, fingers reaching for air chords, and then pulls out his own guitar to try it. It makes sense that poetry engages students when we treat it the same way: observing a master at work, and then trying out the cool move ourselves. It works for high school (see this post), and it works for middle school.

Here’s what it looked like recently with my 6th and 7th graders:

(1) We read a poem, actively engaging in observing what the poet does and the effect it has. To see how we did this with “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan, see this blog post.

(2) I identified for imitation significant patterns and literary devices the poet uses. Here’s what I identified for 3 of the poems we imitated:

• Using “Fog” by Carl Sandburg as a model: Write at least 2 sentences in 4 lines personifying a natural occurrence as an animal.
• Using “Foul Shot” by Edwin A. Hoey as a model: Write at least 2 sentences—one for a person (with 5 vivid verbs) and one for an object (with 5 vivid verbs, one per line) involved in the same event. Also use personification, alliteration, and onomatopoeia at least once each.
• Using “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan as a model: Choose a time you took a step of independence, learned something new, or did something for the first time by yourself. Write a vivid, literal description of doing it. Include at least 3 specific concrete images (at least 5 lines). End with a simile (at least 2 lines). (Total: at least 7 lines)

(3) I modeled writing with a model. Here’s my poem modeled on “Fog.” 

Typhoon

The typhoon swims toward the island

with powerful strokes of muscular flukes.

It breaches, blows, turns, and sprays 

water over the city and farm and 

leaves everything drowned in its wake.

(4) Students tried it out themselves, and shared with a writing partner for revision.

(5) I modeled reflecting on my writing process and choices. Here's my reflection for "Typhoon": I lived in Okinawa for 4 years, and the typhoons I experienced there were really amazing, so I wanted to try to write about them. I thought that a whale was both powerful and wet, like a typhoon. I didn’t like my first draft very much, but then I realized that I could make a more subtle comparison by just using terms that are specific to whales to describe the typhoon--like “flukes” and “breaches.” Then suddenly “blows” turns from an ordinary word about the wind to one associated with whales, too, as in “Thar she blows!”

(6) Students produced a final draft with a reflection on each poem.

(7) We celebrated! (See photo above.) Students chose 1 poem with its reflection to share with the class. I scattered the chosen poems around the classroom, and gave each student 3 post-it notes for leaving positive comments on 3 classmates poems. This gave writers the opportunity to observe and admire their peers poems, and to get their peers’ responses to their own. 

The poems demonstrated a real grasp of the moves poets use to give their language power--vivid images, personification, metaphor, simile, repetition, shape, word choice, alliteration, onomatopoeia. The reflections articulated students' metacognition about writing. And peer feedback pointed out specific words and phrases that were powerful, images that were surprising, and affirmed creativity and humor. 

Here are a few of the poems: 

  

Rain
The rain comes suddenly
like an energetic puppy.
It hops and plays over mountains and cities
and when it finally grows tired
it gives one final lick
and enters a world of dreams.

Slumbering
With no expectations
and the drowsiness closing in
the little girl being watched by darkness
surrounded by silence
sleeping soundly
sees a clouded image.
Her dream
looms over the earth
searching for a setting
stopping
sniffing
satisfied
smiling
sitting
setting up
thinking to itself
Then 

    Then 

        Then
Then begins.

(See the P.S. for more examples!)

How about you? What do you find engages students with poetry? Have you ever tried model poems or writing reflections? 

------------------
P.S. Read on for 5 more student examples!

Tornado
The tornado comes
with the sound of a lion.
It flings its claws
through houses and trees,
destroying everything in its path
and then dashes away.

Water Kicker
With a cheer from a whole swimming stadium
I started swimming through the water
with ten enemies in front of me
watch the lines with my eyes behind my goggles
I went one, 

            two, 

            three!
Catch up! Catch up! Catch up!
and then, 

            and then, 

                        and then,
I reached the goal, first place.

The Contest
With the judges and the audience staring,
his heart beating strongly in his chest,
the man puts his fingers on the keys
and starts playing the piano.
The piano creates a sound,
a note,
and then
a melody.
Twisting his fingers from side to side
glimpsing at the audience from time to time
the man finishes the song
with a ton of applause.

Skating Along
When you taught me 
how to skate on ice,
skating along beside you,
as I held your hand
and slipped and slid, slowly letting go
and wobbling away,
with my arms straight to the side like
a tightrope walker.

Sorry I Forgot Again
When you taught me how to grip 
chopsticks properly when I was four, you
taught me as gently as an angel.

When you taught me how to grip
chopsticks properly when I was four, you
taught me as strictly as a Spartan.

("Sorry I Forgot Again" reminded me so strongly of "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams, but the writer is a 7th grade English language learner. I can't wait to ask him where he got the idea, and to show him Williams' poem!)