A Creative Poetry Stations Activity
During poetry stations students move around the classroom doing various activities related to poetry. There are many different activities you could have students do at each station. Each station could include a poem students must respond to in some fashion. Students could write their own version of each poem. You could have students try out different poetic devices at each station. Other activities could involve students creating poems out of pages from books, magnets or even legos!
The station activity in this blog post involves having students read an engaging poem and respond to the poem in an unconventional way. If you’d like to replicate this activity in your classroom here are the steps to follow:
Pick a poem for each station.
Create an engaging way for students to respond to each poem.
Model how you expect students to behave during the stations activity.
Model how to respond to a poem at one of the stations.
The rest of this blog post will provide the tools and resources you need to get each step done!
If you’d like ten more lessons like the one outlined in this blog post click below:
Picking Poems
It can be a challenging endeavor to find the right poems for your students. Below, you’ll find links to ten poems you can use. These poems are about topics that resonate with kids…slang, french fries, sports, the outdoors, you get the idea. But, there are also poems included that all students should experience like Where the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins and My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke.
Station #1: Introduction to Poetry
Station #2: Haiku Journey
Station #3: Where I’m From
Station #4: Where the Caged Bird Sings
Station #5: Totally like whatever, you know?
Station #6: Words are Birds
Station #7: My Papa’s Waltz
Station #8: Ode to French Fries
Station #9: Taking One for the Team
Station #10: The Promise
RESPONDING To Poems
During your stations activity you’ll need a really exciting and creative way for students to respond to these poems. You want to hook students into poetry, so you’ve got to get creative and plan something fun! Usually teachers tell students to read the poem multiple times and summarize it or something else that’s pretty boring. Let’s spice things up a bit, shall we?
Tell students that today, their job is just to react to the poems as if the poems were alive!
Urge students to read the poems at least three times. Once to get a sense of what it’s about, once to pay close attention to the feelings they get when reading it and once to pay close attention to the images that come to mind when reading it. Then, have students write a response to the poem using one of these sentence stems you see above!
Modeling Behavior
If you want students to be successful and productive during your stations activity you must model behavior and explain the procedures. Students will get done at different times during this activity so you should consider allowing students to move freely from station to station without a timer.
You might also consider making a copy of all the poems and taping them to a piece of large butcher paper and having students write their responses on the butcher paper. This will allow students to read others’ responses during the activity!
It’s also important to tell students the noise level. Tell students you expect a silent noise level. Do this for as long as students can stand it, maybe about 15-20 minutes so students can get the hang of reading poems and responding to them. After, 20 minutes you could allow students to whisper. You might have them share their reactions, talk about the poems and responses.
Finally, you’ll need to model the reading and response process for students…
Modeling Responding to Poems
First, read the poem out loud two to three three times. Look up a few words using your phone (if you are planning to allow students to do this). Then, write your creative response on a Poetry Stations Reflections Sheet or on butcher paper next to the poem.
Want a done for you poetry stations reflection sheet and the lesson to go with it?
Click Access Freebie Library to download everything you need for this poetry stations lesson along with many other awesome free resources from other teacherwriting.org teacher bloggers!
Here are some examples of creative responses to Haiku Journey:
If this poem were Earth it would be one year.
I was waiting in line at the grocery store and this poem was checking out in front of me, suddenly the poem turned to me and said they were stocking up on food for winter and warned me to do the same.
This poem is hiding indoors, looking out a window, scared of how fast the seasons change.
The secret this poem told me was that most people didn’t notice the seasons or it.
If I were this poem’s friend I’d tell it to lead the way and show me all that goes unnoticed in a year.
Wrap Up
Stations should be interactive and fun! Hopefully, this blog post has helped inspire you to try stations out during your next poetry unit. If you’d like all the materials to go with this poetry stations activity just sign up for the secondary freebie library by clicking the button above and we’ll send you a password to access all the freebies.
Read Next…
Poetry Collage: Poetry Meets Art
10 Devices and Poems to Model Them All!
13 Ways Pictures Can Inspire Students to Write Poetry
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About the Author
Amanda Werner is a full time middle school English teacher in the Bay Area. She has been teaching for thirteen years and still feels like a novice. Every year is a unique and exciting challenge to inspire a new group of students to become avid readers and writers. Amanda reads educational literature voraciously and writes about the teaching of reading and writing on her website amandawritenow.com. Amanda received her B.A. in English Literature with an emphasis in Humanities at Western Washington University. In her free time, Amanda loves being outdoors with her husband and daughter.