Writing: Patterned Poetry

I love using writers workshop time in February to write poetry about friends.  This is how I presented the lesson, first we read Jessica Crum's poem (see bottom of post). As I have described before, I like doing "Guess the Covered Word" so we did that activity with it. Then we glued it into our poetry journals and examined the pattern Jessica Crum used when she wrote it.  I told students they were going to write their own version of a Friends poem using their own ideas. We did a brainstorming activity called the "Brain Dump" where they wrote down all the activities they like to do with friends. I pushed them to think past the immediate ideas and to think deeply since the "gems" are the ideas hidden deep down in our brains. The "gems" don't come to us right away, they come as we stretch our brains. They then starred their favorite ideas and the drafting began.

We used the pattern of: "You get the ____,

I'll get the ______. 

We'll _________ together. 

They drafted and then we went to revision. We didn't want "get" to be a "tired word" so we brainstormed other ways to begin some of our lines to make it an interesting poem for others to read. We edited or "cleaned" up our writing and then it went to publication. The art work was the last step. Here are the final products:

Here is a reference poster the kids and I made up together as we were working on the editing stage. We decided to make it because some kids were writing about names of games like Monopoly and Sorry and did not know they needed capital letters. An example of how student needs can really drive our instruction.

Here is the poem printed two to a page to cut down on copies. This size fits nicely in their poetry journal

Beginning of Year Friends Poem

Just a thought, if I was doing it now, I might make it into a fall poem by having kids brainstorm things that they like to do with friends at this time of year: football, playing in leaves, trick or treating, bobbing for apples, picking pumpkins, etc. etc.

Have fun writing with your kids!!