Can't Stop. Won't Stop: More Poetry!

We know, We know. We've already had one National Poetry Month post, but we just can't help ourselves. Brainstorming about bringing poetry into different disciplines led us to more lesson ideas that we had to share. Even better, Gretchen has put together her favorite sites for poetry resources at the end of this post.

The American Revolution

.Idea 7: Book Spine Poetry
Using the titles on book spines, students create poetry on a topic or unit. Encourage students to think more broadly beyond non-fiction titles specific to a time period, using fiction books that evoke events, people, places from the unit.

Idea 8: Headlines as Poetry
Use newspaper headlines to create poems about historical events, people, places or social studies concepts like "freedom" or "democracy." Students are given a theme and then work in pairs to cut out the headlines. They construct a poem out of headlines and then share in a gallery walk.

Idea 9: Poems as Primary Sources
Have students analyze poetry (or song lyrics) as a primary source using OPVL.. To add an extra challenge, students can be tasked with figuring out in what era the poem was written.

Idea 10: Poem Photography
Give students a poem from a historical era and challenge them to find a photograph from that time period to pair with it that represents the theme of the poem. Or in reverse, and even more challenging, offer students a photograph and have them find a poem to pair with it.

Idea 11: Poetry as Timeline
Have students write individual one line poems about historical events. Next have students piece the one line poems together in chronological order to form a historical timeline poem. The beauty of this assignment is that students can work on lines individually and then they can be arranged on a giant piece of paper as a collective work of poetry. Better yet, do a poetry read aloud, allowing each student to read his or her line. Make an audio recording to share.

Select Poetry Resources:

• The American Academy of Poets
• The Poetry Foundation
• The Poetry Archive UK
• BBC Poetry
• Garrison Keilor's Writer's Almanac
• Poetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools (Library of Congress)

We hope these ideas inspire you to bring a little poetry to your classroom. We'll be sure to add photos later this month when some of our 7th grade students head to the library to make their own Book Spine Poetry about historical eras. We can't wait to see what they create. Until then, please share your own poetry ideas as they to bubble up!

Corey & Gretchen

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You might also like:

• National Poetry Month Ideas for Social Studies (April 13, 2016)
• Book Spine Poetry: Building Poems One Book at a Time (April 26, 2016)