Poetry - An Adventure in Writing

I have always believed that poetry is a great way to look at the world, so explore self, and to handle emotion. I have worked hard to create a sense of fun and joy in my students through the use of poetry, showing them with new way to express themselves, on to go on a journey of self, emotional, and mental healing through writing.

This assignment is something I have used for years and had a lot of fun with. This is for a poetry unit, usually a dedicated 4-5 weeks of writing and learning poetry, poetic forms, and student created poems.

This is a self-guided adventure in poetry, so students take it on themselves to learn the forms and to write poems to meet those forms. As the teacher I am a resource for clarification and help, idea generation, and this allows for some one-on-one time with students. Fellow students also become resources for each other, as well as rules and example sheets, internet searches, and any other sources students can think of to find and use.

This is a gamification of Poetry. Students are venturing into a dungeon, writing poems to advance to the next level, and gathering items along the way to fight the evil Poetry Dragon at the end. I set up a level scale in Excel and make avatars for each student to advance on the track (you can also write names of students in the files to track them that way). To proceed to the next level students have to show understanding of the level they are on by writing poems of that level's forms and take a small (5 question usually) quiz to show understanding of poetic features and terms (like: syllable, line, rhyme, etc.). I only ever required students to get to Level 4 and there required them to write a Sonnet to pass, but many went beyond to Level 5 or even the Mastery Level where they would research and create their own rules for a poetic form not on the list, then teach others the form the research or created. Level 5 is higher level poetry, like the Sestina and Villanelle, which could be considered upper High School or even College level poetry, and I have seen 7th graders crush those forms as they have fun with this unit.

Provided I always give students rules for the level, requirements, and poetic form information sheets with rules and examples. They are free to research as needed additionally or to ask for help if they are struggling.

As students adventure through the poetry levels, there are items to gather, they get one per level. This is just a fun addition, picking up armor at Level 2, Boots at Level 4, a weapon to fight the dragon at Level 5. These Items I always added to the Avatar, which was projected so students could see their peers advance but also know who they could ask for help, or work with by seeing who is on the same level they are. It is a fun and visual way to add to the project