Lesson Introduction
In this lesson students are given the opportunity to be imaginative and expressive through the writing of three types of poems: acrostic, diamante, and theme. Building on their creativity, students then use Blabberize to create Blabbers of one of their poems. Sharing their Blabbers with the class and online community will make the students more excited about writing poetry as well as providing practice of technology skills.
Learning Objectives
In this lesson, students will have opportunities to:
- Create an acrostic, diamante, and theme poem, following the correct formats.
- Create a Blabber of one of their poems using Blabberize.
Materials and Resources
To teach this lesson, you will need:
- Poetry Books with Good Illustrations
- classroom computer with projection capabilities and speakers
- computers with Internet capabilities, headphones, and microphones
- document camera (optional)
- chart paper, chalkboard, or whiteboard
- Acrostic Poems: This online tool enables students to learn about and write acrostic poems. Elements of the writing process are also included.
- Theme Poems: Formerly known as Shape Poems, this online tool allows elementary students to write poems in various shapes.
- Diamante Poems: This online tool enables students to learn about and write diamante poems.
- Printouts:
- Blabberize Instructions
- Blabberize Rubric
- Image Websites
- Acrostic Discussion Questions
- Diamante Discussion Questions
- Diamante Poem
- Acrostic Poem
- Theme Poem Rubric
- Websites:
- Blabberize: At this website students will bring their poetry to life using a mouth placed on a digital image. They will record their poems and the mouths will then move with the text.
- The Poetry Archive: Using The Children’s Archive selection of this website, one will search for recorded poems according to theme, form, or author.
- Repeat After Us: This website has recordings of copyright free poetry, tongue-twisters, and nursery rhymes.
- Different Types of Poems for Kids: This website will provide examples of the three types of poetry the students will write.
- Ken Nesbitt’s Poetry4Kids.com: Nesbitt provides detailed instructions and more examples of how to write an acrostic poem.
- Flickr: Creative Commons: This website can be used for images, and most are copyright cleared with credits provided.
- Pics 4 Learning: Copyright-friendly images can be found at this website that targets teachers and students.
- Imagebase: Free photos can be found at this website.
Lesson provided by ReadWriteThink.org, a website developed by the International Reading Association and the N.C.T.E.