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Formatted poem
A formatted poem can be used in class to develop vocabulary in a particular field and to consolidate student awareness of different parts of speech. Different variations of formatted poems are as folllows:
Basic formatted poem 1[edit | edit source]
- The teacher sets a noun as a title to the poem or allows students to choose their own e.g. “frogs"
- The teacher demonstrates, then instructs students to brainstorm/mindmap nouns, adjectives and verbs which are associated with this subject e.g.:
- Verbs: leap, jump, hop, sit, catch, swim, kick, croak, blink, sing….
- Adjectives: green, brown, colourful, dull, poisonous, slimy, wise, quick, wet, slippery, tranquil, versatile…
- Nouns: frog, tadpole, frogspawn, pond, legs, tongue…
- Once the lists are ready, the teacher instructs students to use their word lists to form a poem with the following structure:
noun |
adjective, adjective |
gerund, gerund, gerund |
clause |
adjective, noun |
Which would result in a basic formatted poem like this:
noun | Frog |
adjective, adjective | Slimy, wet |
gerund, gerund, gerund | Croaking, blinking, leaping |
clause | A frog loves a pond |
adjective, noun | Wise frog |
Basic formatted poem 2[edit | edit source]
To exemplify how the format can be altered, the following poem is still simple to write and the procedure is the same as for basic formatted poem 1 above.
noun |
adjective, adjective |
preposition, adjective, noun |
verb, adverb |
question word |
Producing something like this:
noun | Space |
adjective, adjective | Empty, black |
preposition, adjective, noun | Out of massive universe |
verb, adverb | Moving slowly |
question word | Where? |
Advanced formatted poem[edit | edit source]
This poem demands a thorough understanding of parts of speech and also a wider vocabulary resource.
- The teacher sets a noun as a title to the poem or allows students to choose their own e.g. “clouds"
- The teacher dictates the following list of parts of speech in the given order: determiner, noun, verb, adverb, preposition, determiner, adjective, noun, conjunction, pronoun, verb (pausing after each).
- After hearing each part of speech the students should write a word that is related to the topic/poem title.
The final result might read something like this:
Determiner | this |
Noun | cloud |
Verb | drift |
Adverb | softly |
Preposition | over |
Determiner | those |
Adjective | silent |
Noun | river |
Conjunction | while |
Pronoun | she |
Verb | sleep |
- Following completion most poems won’t be 100% ready, so the students should read and edit their poems, punctuating them and tweaking the grammar wherever necessary to form poetry such as this:
Those clouds.
Drifting silently
Over the silent river,
While it sleeps
- The students share poems in pairs and, if they are willing, with the class.