Poetry Writing Ideas

[barefootcook]

I am organising a school wide writing festival. The plan is for all students (11-18) to spend four lessons writing a poem. To help the staff, I need to provide them with a bank of resources that they can choose from. I am in the look out for tried and true tasks that will result in a decent poem. The skills will need to be taught in one lesson and the remaining three lessons will be for writing, editing and presenting to display standard.

Are you an English teacher or a visiting university student? Four lessons for a single poem is a lot and it’s pretty likely that all involved will feel pretty bored by the end of it. It might be better to spend three lessons writing three different kinds of poems and the fourth lesson selecting the favourite and polishing/producing a version for display. Kate Clanchy’s How to Grow Your Own Poem has ideas that can easily be turned into lesson plans and reliably produce decent poems in student workshops.

I agree with @QuickFoxRun, especially if this is to be done by teachers other than English teachers.

Thank you both- very good advice. I definitely like the idea of them writing several poems and selecting their favourite one to present.

Word association poetry
A Sack of Words (or a bag) - see Pie Corbett
Autopoem
Found poems

Are some that I have used. Pictures and similes using the sack of words ideas works well (you end up making a sack of similes) then need to edit.

Hi I am a writer, and one of the techniques that I teach is pictoral inspiration (excellent for all ages, and neurodiversity and people with processing differences).

If you would like some of the pictures that I use please get in touch.