POETRY & DESCRIPTION
POETRY
• A concise form of writing that uses imaginative language, rhythm, and often rhyme to communicate
ideas and feelings.
• To make every word count, a poet carefully chooses language that is vivid, precise, and often musical, or
pleasing to hear.
• Descriptive details create imagery that helps readers picture what something looks like or imagine its
aroma, sound, texture, or taste.
EFFECTIVE POEMS
• A clear topic, theme, or controlling idea.
• A variety of poetic techniques, such as structural elements, figurative language, and sound devices.
• Structural elements, such as rhyme and meter.
• Figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, and personification.
• Sensory details that allow the reader to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel what the poet describes.
• Sound devices that create a musical or emotional effect
FORMS OF POETRY & DESCRIPTION
• Ballads: poems that tell a story and are usually meant to be sung. Ballads often contain repetition and have a
simple, regular rhyme pattern and meter, or “beat.”
• Descriptive Essays: use imagery and vivid details to help readers imagine a person, place, thing, or event. Like
all essays, they are made up of an introduction, body, and conclusion. They include forms such as eyewitness
accounts or travel writing.
• Free Verse: poetry that imitates the rhythms of everyday speech. Freed of set rhythm and rhyme patterns,
free verse uses figurative language and sound devices to convey ideas and feelings.
• Haiku: are three-line poems that originated in Japan. In a haiku, the first and last lines consist of five syllables,
and the middle line consists of seven syllables. Classic haiku are usually about nature.
FORMS OF POETRY & DESCRIPTION
• Lyric poems: poems that express a speaker’s feelings about a particular person, place, thing, or event.
Unlike ballads, lyric poems usually do not tell a story. Sonnets and free verse poems are types of lyric
poems.
• Prose poems: regular text you might find in a story or essay, but use poetic techniques to create a
memorable description of a person, place, thing, or event.
• Sonnets: 14-line poems written in a regular meter and pattern of rhyme. One kind of sonnet – the
English sonnet – consists of three four-line stanzas and a final couplet, or two rhyming lines. In each
stanza, alternating lines rhyme.
MENTOR TEXT/DISCUSSION
• Read aloud Sir Patrick Spens page 122
• Read aloud Special Glasses by Billy Collins page 123
STUDENT MODEL/DISCUSSION
• Read Fire to Fight by Carmen Ramos on page 124
• Provide examples of the following:
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A sentence that you can picture.
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A sentence where the image could be stronger.
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A word or phrase where you question meaning.
• Read Cat Dog by Jake Gomez
• Provide examples of the following:
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A sentence that you can picture.
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A sentence where the image could be stronger.
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A word or phrase where you question meaning.
FEATURE POEM ASSIGNMENT
• A ballad
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A simple rhyme pattern and regular rhythm.
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A narrative that tells a story, often an adventure or romance.
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A song-like structure, often with a refrain, or a regularly repeated line or group of lines.
• Free Verse
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Text written to mimic the patterns of natural speech
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No specific rhyme pattern
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No specific meter
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No specific length
PREWRITING
• Topics:
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Nature or Important Person
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Event or Performance
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Art or Hobby
• Completely written out topic bank on page 126.
PREWRITING: NARROW YOUR TOPIC/AUDIENCE
• Vivid poems contain specific details. Narrow your topic to make it easier to focus on precise details.
• Using the topic narrow sheet complete the following:
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Write the main topic of your poem in the top box.
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Move down the chart, narrowing your topic to help focus on specific details.
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Your last box should hold the details that will be your poems focus
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Example on page 127
PREWRITING: NARROW YOUR TOPIC/AUDIENCE
• On the bottom of your graphic organizer sheet answer the following questions:
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Who will read my poem?
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What will my readers need to know to understand my poem?
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What poetic form would best convey the meaning to them?
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Why am I writing? Do I want to entertain my readers by making them laugh? Move my readers by making them
see and feel what I saw and felt? Something else?
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What kinds of poetic techniques will help me fulfill my purpose?
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How can the poetic form help me fulfill my purpose?
PLAN YOUR PIECE
• Develop a Topic, Theme, or Controlling Idea
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Write a clear statement of your topic, theme, or controlling idea.
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Name the most important idea or feeling you want to communicate.
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Add your statement to the center of the graphic organizer.
• Develop Ideas and Details
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On the graphic organizer identify ideas, feelings, and sensory details related to your topic.
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Underline the ones that best fulfill your purpose.
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Should have a minimum of two ideas under each heading.
POET’S TOOLBOX
• Techniques used to make their ideas vivid and clear.
• Techniques highlight the topic and controlling ideas.
• Help describe emotions, feelings, and ideas.
POET’S TOOLBOX
Figurative Language
Writing that means something beyond what the
words actually say.
Simile: comparison using like or as
The tea kettle is like an angry red dragon.
Metaphor: comparison made by saying that one
thing is something else.
The whistling tea kettle is my alarm clock at
Grandma’s house.
Personification: human characteristics applied to
non-human objects.
The tea kettle whistled its familiar tune.
Symbols
An object that stands for something else.
Add depth and insight to poetry.
The tea kettle could symbolize the joy of spending
time with Grandma
POET’S TOOLBOX
Sound Devices
Create a musical or emotional effect.
Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at the
beginning of nearby words.
Grandma poured perfect pots of tea.
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds in nearby
words.
The squeak of the tea kettle work me up.
Consonance: repetition of consonants in the middle
or at the end of words.
Grandma would knead bread dough each week.
Structural Elements
Help build the framework for poetic language.
Rhyme: repetition of sounds at the ends of lines of
poetry.
As big breakfast of eggs and ham
Is part of a special morning with Gram.
Meter: rhythmical pattern of a poem. It is
determined by stressed syllables in a line. Some
forms of poetry have specific patterns of stressed
syllables.
I love to spend a day with Gram.
We bake our pies and make our jam.
POET’S TOOLBOX
Graphic Elements
Arrangement of words on a page
Position the words on a page.
Capital letters, line spacing, and line breaks.
DRAFTING
Free Verse Characteristics
• Varied number of lines.
• Varied number of stanzas.
• No meter used; follows natural patterns of
speech.
• Rhyme not often used.
• Poetic techniques may be used.
• Feeling or emotion conveyed.
• Vivid descriptions.
Questions to Answer While Drafting
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How long do I want my poem to be?
What sound devices will I use?
What poetic techniques will I use?
What feelings or emotions will I express?
How will I make my descriptions vivid?
START WRITING
• Use your graphic organizer and topic narrow worksheets to start writing poem.
• Remember this is a free verse poem so refer back to the characteristics frequently.
• Refer to the rubric handed out on how you will be graded. Double check all elements are somewhere
within your poem to receive full points.
• Due dates:
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Orange: January 4th beginning of class
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Black: January 5th beginning of class