Active, Hands-On Poetry Analysis in Middle School ELA
A Guide for Middle School ELA Teachers
Before I share my four ways below, lemme just say. . .
It’s fine to practice vocabulary–
- Using fill-in-the-blank sentences
- Note cards, task cards
- Matching words to definitions
- Frayer models
- Words-in-context practice
- Standards-based multiple choice
Y’all—there’s nothing wrong with any of that! The more ways we provide to students to practice a skill, the better equipped they’ll be to thrive in any number of situations involving unfamiliar words.
In fact, if you’ve been part of my Ready, Set, Stations™ subscription, then you’ve likely seen all those various types of vocabulary practice methods sprinkled throughout the fiction and nonfiction sets you receive each month.
But here’s how I LOVE to teach both poetry AND vocabulary as an all-in-one multi-faceted creative approach (also seen pretty regularly in the Poetry Stations of the Ready, Set, Stations™ subscription).
Vocabulary Haiku Poem
A haiku is a short poem with three lines.
- 1st line has 5 syllables.
- 2nd line has 7 syllables.
- 3rd line has 5 syllables.
Haikus often describe nature or something you see. Try to use strong words that paint a picture in your reader’s mind.
Vocabulary HAIKU example using the word “EPIC” which appears in one of the poems we were using in class:
Storm, wild and fierce,
Raging winds, and thunder’s roar,
Nature’s epic rage.
After working this through with my students whole-class style, I then ask them to work with me to identify other words that we might consider abstract, unfamiliar, used in a way we’re not used to seeing, etc.
They dive back into the passage (what we always want them to do anyway!) and we typically come up with a class list of 5-8 words.
I then allow them to choose a word and create their own haiku.
Vocabulary Acrostic Poem
An acrostic poem is a special kind of poem where the first letter of each line spells a word. Here’s an example, again using the word EPIC.
**E** Electric sky, a fearsome sight
**P** Pouring rain, a blinding light
**I** Incredulous wonder fills the air
**C** Chaos unleashed, beyond compare
You could definitely have students use the exact same word they just used before (I mean, I did with EPIC), or you could have them choose a different word from the class list you all came up with.
Vocabulary Concrete Poem
Choose one of the vocabulary words to write about in the shape of a symbol that goes with the meaning of the word.
Example: Epic — I wrote about an epic storm in the shape of a tornado for my concrete poem.
In case the image^ came through a bit blurry, I sketched a super rough shape of what’s supposed to look like a tornado. To fill it up, I incorporated words, phrases, and sentences with lots of sensory details (sight, sound, touch, etc.) and wrote within the shape of the poem.
For this type of poem, I was able to model for my students that our understanding of the concept of “epic” needed to be deeper than what we created for the haiku or for the acrostic poems.
That’s why when you go through these types of vocabulary poems with your students for the first time, I recommend going in the order of haiku, acrostic, concrete, and then the final one:
Cinquain Poem
A cinquain is a short poem with five lines:
Line 1: 1 word (noun)
Line 2: 2 words (adjectives describe the noun)
Line 3: 3 words (actions related to the noun)
Line 4: 4 words (feeling about the noun)
Line 5: 1 word (synonym for the noun)
Example using the word epic to describe a storm:
Storm
Chaotic, raging
Roaring, crashing, howling
Epic powerful fury unleashed
Chaos
……………………………………………………………………….
NOTE: That^ lesson is just a small part of an entire set of station materials that lives as part of my monthly themed station collection.
Get the entire collection of monthly middle school stations when you join Ready, Set, Stations —> Each month’s set includes a fiction, nonfiction, poetry collection so that all the activities (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar) go together thematically!
Let me overthink stations so you don’t have to😉
INTRODUCING:
I’ll send you 12 fresh, themed station activities loaded up ready-made style each month:
✅One fiction passage + one nonfiction passage + one poem
➡️ One reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary station for EACH passage
🙋🏻♀️ That’s 3 thematically-linked passages with 4 stations per passage = 12 stations each month!
