POETRY

Purpose

Poetry is a terrific way for students to express their feelings about a novel or a character. Poetry helps students summarize the main points of the novel in a creative way. Poetry forms are easy to follow and give most students a feeling of success and pride. Products are so varied that displaying them will enhance your students' understanding of their novel.

Doing the Activity

1. Offer students several different forms of poetry from which they can select to compose a poem about a character(s) in their novel or about the novel as a whole. Remind students these forms are suggestions and that they are welcome to find other forms of poetry with which to express themselves.
2. Invite students to write and illustrate the poems on construction paper. Display all poems on a bulletin board for class sharing.

FORM: WHO-WHAT-WHERE-WHEN-WHY

Five phrases to answer the five W's.

Example for TUCK EVERLASTING

Winifred Foster Jackson
Dear wife, Dear mother
Treegap graveyard
1870-1948
Stayed on the wheel of life

FORM: ACROSTIC POEM

Example for TUCK EVERLASTING

W ater is in the wood she owns

I ndependent is what she wants to be

N eighbors think she is a hero

N ightgown was what Mae offered

I mage of Jesse made her heart almost stop

E verlasting Tucks tell her THE secret

F lapjacks is what she had at the Tucks

O dd is what the Tucks are

S he needs to decide whether to drink or not

T he Tucks are her friends

E lves is what her grandmother thinks about the music box

R unning away is what she did because she lost her patience