Introduction:
Incorporating poetry into your secondary English Language Arts (ELA) class can offer numerous benefits for students, from encouraging creativity to enhancing critical thinking. Love, Teach – a dedicated resource for teachers – has put together a list of 11 engaging prompts that promise to spark inspired poetry writing in your ELA students. So, let the creativity flow!
1. Found Poems:
Invite students to search through newspapers, magazines, or books and select words and phrases to create a “found” poem. This can help them identify literary devices used in everyday language.
2. Acrostic Poems:
Ask students to choose a word and write an acrostic poem using each letter as the first letter of every line. This encourages exploring the meanings behind different words.
3. Illustrated Haikus:
Encourage students to experiment with the traditional Japanese haiku format (5-7-5 syllables). Then, ask them to create an illustration that complements their haiku.
4. Bio-Poems:
Prompt students to write a poem about themselves in an autobiographical format, revealing their inner thoughts and feelings while also considering structure and rhythm.
5. Circle of Life Poetry:
Challenge students to pick a theme related to the life cycle – birth, growth, decay, death – and craft a poem reflecting these stages.
6. Point of View Switcheroo:
Ask students to rewrite a classic poem from a different character’s perspective or switch settings, providing new insights into the original work.
7. Blackout Poetry:
Give students an existing text and have them “blackout” parts of it with markers or paint to create a unique poem by leaving select words visible.
8. Six-Word Stories:
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famous six-word story, encourage students to write their own powerful mini-poems using just six words.
9. Color Symbolism Poems:
Challenge students to explore the symbolism of colors and create a poem around their chosen color, evoking feelings and moods associated with it.
10. Poems for Two Voices:
Invite students to work in pairs to write poems that interweave two different perspectives on a shared theme, resulting in a dynamic reading experience.
11. Ekphrastic Poems:
Have students select a piece of artwork and write a poem interpreting the emotions or narrative depicted through the artist’s eyes.
Conclusion:
These 11 poetry prompts from Love, Teach offer diverse opportunities for your ELA students to explore the power and versatility of poetry. Integrating these creative exercises into your classroom can help further develop their literary skills, groom their poetic instincts, and deepen their appreciation for language as a form of self-expression.
