| Body | by Madi Collins, CASLS Student Worker
This activity was created to guide learners through creating a poem about a topic of their choosing in the target language. It was designed for learners of all levels and provides a poem structure for each level.
Learning outcomes:
Learners will be able to:
- Identify a topic or main idea for their poem.
- Create a list of words they want to use in their poem.
- Write a poem following the rules for the selected style of poetry.
Mode(s):
Presentational, Interpersonal
Materials:
Write a Poem video, dictionary or word database in the target language, paper or a digital document for writing poems
Procedure:
- Show learners the Write a Poem video. Ask learners to brainstorm a topic they would like to write a poem about in the target language.
- Have learners make a list of at least four to five words related to their topic that they might use in their poem. Learners can use a dictionary, textbook or online resource as needed to look up words.
- Provide learners with an explanation of the structure of the type of poem they will be writing. This could be any of the examples below or a different type of poem of the instructor’s or learners’ choosing. Provide one or more examples of the typeof poem learners will be writing.
- Beginner: Acrostic – Learners write one word vertically along the side of the page. Each line of the poem starts with one letter of the vertical word.
- Intermediate: Haiku/Six-Word Memoir – For haiku, there are three lines. The first and last lines have five syllables and the middle line has seven syllables. . A six-word memoir is a description of a person, place or thing composed of only six words.
- Advanced: Rhyming Couplets – These couplets consist of two lines of roughly the same length. The last words of the lines rhyme with each other. Learners can create one or more set of couplets.
- Ask learners to write their poems using the words they listed.
- Once learners are done writing, have them share their poem with a partner or in small groups. Afterwards, they can edit their poem.
- If space permits, have learners display their poems so others can read them. Alternately,ask for volunteers to read their poem aloud to the group.
- In the whole group, ask for volunteers to discuss the process of writing their poems, or reading or listening to their peers’ poems. Discussion questions could include:
- How did the structure of the poem affect the order of the words they used?
- What was helpful or unhelpful about the following rules that tell you how the structure of the poem?
- When you read or listened to someone else’s poem, which words in the poem told you what it was about?
Notes:
Modifications: Choose the type of poem based on learner proficiency level. Lower level learners will benefit from writing poems that have set rules that govern their structure. Advanced learners will be able to write more free-form, less structured poems.
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