Poetry Slam!

Have you ever hosted a poetry slam? I just LOVE them! It has been a while, but it makes sharing poetry so fun and so real. Adding parents in makes it even better and gives students the feeling of having a real audience. Their nerves are up just enough to make it feel like a big deal. Here's a look at how our poetry slam went. It is super basic and easy to put together. 

The Poetry Unit

First off, April is poetry month, so it was the perfect time to do a unit on poetry. We learned so much about how to put poetry together...that it takes something ordinary and makes it extraordinary. We learned about how poets use different types of figurative language and how they are used. 

*simile

*metaphor

*personification

*hyperbole

*onomatopoeia

We practiced writing different types of poetry. 

*bio poems

*haiku

*cinquain

*diamante

*acrostic

*rhyming

*free verse

*letter

*memory

*subject/predicate

and others

We practiced reading poetry and digging into the deeper meaning. 

Planning for the Poetry Slam

Once we had a good repertoire of poetry written, the students picked two poems to share at our poetry slam. I helped them to edit the poems and they published them. To publish, they simply followed the edits, making changes. They wrote the poem in their very best writing and made an illustration to go with it. Students were encouraged to reread their poems. We talked about how to speak before an audience...pausing, looking up, using an appropriate voice level, etc. 

I made a little paper program for our poetry slam to make it feel more real. The morning of the program we moved our desks to one side and set up chairs on the other. We added a stool for the poets to sit on. We had cookies laid out and some water bottles to enjoy afterwards.

The Poetry Slam

It was really very simple to host the slam. I started by welcoming any guests that came, which honestly were not a lot, but still enough to make it feel like we had a real audience. Once I welcomed guests, I explained that I would be announcing each poem and that it is a tradition at a poetry reading to applaud with snapping instead of clapping. Then one by one I had each poet come up to read. They read one poem and then sat back down. Later each poet presented another poem. It was that simple. After we were finished with the poetry, we enjoyed our cookies and water. 

Extending the Learning

This coming week we will be finishing our poetry unit. We will finish writing our poems and then each of the poets will publish each of their poems and we will create a small booklet of poems stapled together with a front cover. Each student will go home with a book of their own poetry to treasure for many years.