Due to the unique structure and form of poetry, leveraging punctuation, grammar, and mechanics provides a way for students to interact authentically and realistically without “teaching grammar” per se. 

Here’s an example: 

This is a poem I wrote myself (be nice—I tried!) because when I set up my monthly stations, I like all the reading selections to connect thematically. I had my fiction piece, my nonfiction piece, but I couldn’t locate just the right poetry piece to round out my collection.

And since I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I decided to write it myself because the theme of this particular month’s stations was going to “starting over, fitting in, new beginnings”: 

Because punctuation, form, mechanics, etc. are SO pivotal to comprehension, here’s the task I gave my students to do with that poem in their grammar station: 

. . . And of course I always include a teacher “answer key” for every assignment so that those who get ALL my monthly themed stations inside Ready, Set, Stations have total confidence. 

That assignment’s answer key looks something like this where everything is marked and labled (sorry if the image is a little blurry…) The real one inside Ready, Set, Stations is crystal clear! 

How do the periods, commas, and dashes help change the way the poem sounds when you read it this time around? Student answers will vary to this question. 

Responses may include: 

– Reading line by line sounds pretty but it doesn’t really help me understand what’s actually happening in the poem the way reading it like sentences does. 

– The commas help me know when to take a breath or slow down 

– The period help me know that a complete thought is done – Or, the commas help me see that more details are coming 

– The dashes show me that a little bit of extra information is there right after the dash, like it’s helpful to know but it’s not super important to where we need a whole new sentence 

– I forgot that poems don’t have paragraphs. They have stanzas, and I always forget that. 

– Lines aren’t the same as sentences so it helps when you’re reading to know that a line by itself might not make sense because it’s only part of the sentence. You have to keep reading ’til you get to the period. 

In that way, instead of boring students to death with “here are the 10 steps to using grammar, punctuation, and mechanics to better comprehend poetry,” I’m able to give them a set of 10 hands-on tasks to complete in their grammar station which helps them make the connection between punctuation and meaning. 

To increase the rigor, here’s a superfun activity you can do with almost any poem! To keep things simple, I’ll just use the same poem I shared above already. 

1.  Rewrite the poem in a long paragraph format. Here’s what that looks like (again—same poem as above):

New kid on the block— a shiny penny, dropped into a world I don’t quite get. A jungle of faces, a maze of names, lost in the crowd, tired of change. A chameleon’s disguise, a desperate plea to blend in the crowd, be myself and be free. But beneath the surface, a heart that yearns for connection, for friendship, that truly burns. Like a puzzle piece missing its place, searching for corners, a perfect fit. Words like echoes, bouncing off walls, fear of rejection, my spirit falls. But hope flickers— a tiny spark, igniting courage and leaving its mark. With every smile is a chance to connect, to find my place, with no regrets.

I give ^that^ paragraph to my students (only if they haven’t seen the actual poem yet). 

2. Then, I give them these instructions: 

Turn this paragraph into a poem by completing the following–

(Step A) Decide whether or not to divide it into stanzas.

(Step B) Decide where the line breaks will be.

(Step C) Give the poem a title.

(Step D) Compare your results with other students’ results and discuss.

Students get to be SO creative, thoughtful, intentional, and risk-taking when they can play with punctuation, poetry conventions, and comprehension to create a poem out of a paragraph. 

They’re typically begging me to let them see the “real poem” once they finish with theirs! It’s especially heart-warming to see them dive into the “real” poem and analyze (criticize!) how it was originally written as compared to how they wrote their own version. 

……………………………………………………………………….

NOTE: That^ lesson is just a small part of an entire set of stations materials that exist as my “Strange New Beginnings” themed stations that I loooove using at the beginning of the school year. 

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!