Online Learning Activities, Writing Activities

Poetry: A Writing With Writers Activity

Your students will study poetry with these step-by-step workshops hosted by popular poets.

  • Grades: 1–2, 3–5, 6–8

The “Writing with Writers: Poetry” (grades 1-8) interactive activity is designed to help students practice writing poems, and includes workshops hosted by three authors who expose students to various characteristics of poetry, such as powerful description, rhythm, and rhyming. Each writer offers models of his or her work as well as suggestions for students, including warm-up exercises, and other tips to help them create, revise, and share their work.

  • Poetry Writing with Jack Prelutsky (grades 1-4): Students discover how to shape ideas and words into creative, descriptive, and silly poems. Popular children's poet Jack Prelutsky provides students with an example of his own poetry accompanied by an audio clip of him reading the poem. He also shares writing tips that he uses when he writes poetry. Students get to show what they learned when Jack challenges them to continue a poem he has begun. Jack also provides students with guidelines for revising their writing.
     
  • Writing I Spy Riddles with Jean Marzollo (grades 2-5): Author Jean Marzollo leads students on a poetry writing journey using her riddle-writing style from the award-winning I Spy series. Using models of her published riddles and photographs from her books, Ms. Marzollo turns a complex writing style into a simple format that young students can copy and extend.
     
  • Poetry Writing with Karla Kuskin (grades 4-8): Students learn to write poems with help from award-winning poet Karla Kuskin. Karla provides students with a sample poem, plus writing tips, strategies, and challenges to help them create their own poetry. She also gives students guidelines on revising their writing, and provides general comments, suggestions, and ideas about writing poetry.
     
  • Once students have crafted their own poems, they can submit them to Scholastic's Poetry Collection using a simple interactive form. After being reviewed by Scholastic.com staff, the students' poems may be published online! Students can view all accepted poetry submissions in the archive.
     
  • Students can practice writing their own poems with the Poetry Idea Engine. Developed with GoCyberCamp, this engine allows students to explore several types of poems including limericks, haikus, free verses, and more.
     

Learning Objectives

Scholastic's online activities are designed to support the teaching of standards-based skills. While participating in the "Poetry Writing" project, students become proficient with several of these skills:

  • Identify unique characteristics of the poetry genre
  • Practice poetry writing skills such as rhythm, rhyming, and descriptive vocabulary
  • Follow the writing process to create original poetry
  • Understand how to review and revise their own writing
  • Use Web technology to post original writing online

  • Subjects:
    Proofreading, Revision, Poetry Writing, Writing Process
  • Skills:
    Poetry Writing
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