How to Design a Middle School Poetry Anthology Unit

Most middle school English Language Arts curricula include poetry. This unit can be a challenging one for teachers, who typically have less familiarity with this genre than with those of prose. Also, the category of poetry is rather wide, making it difficult for teachers to decide on what to focus. A unit that centers around an anthology—whether it includes poetry that students have found, written, or a combination of both—helps to focus the unit and gives students a tangible product toward which to work.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Poetry books/photocopies
• General office supplies for students
• Poetry writing methods

1. Expose students to a range of poetry. Poetry comes in many forms and covers a plethora of topics. Share as many different kinds of poems with students as possible, and help them to understand that there is no one answer to the question "What is a poem?"
2. Determine what skills you want your students to master; this will determine your final outcome. For example, if you mainly want your students to learn how to write various kinds of poems, then have their anthologies solely or primarily include their personal work. If you want students to be able to identify elements of poetry, you may wish to have students assemble their anthologies from already-written work (you may have them attach their own commentaries).
3. Make it impossible for students to fail by providing all the necessary materials. Students at the middle school level can get tripped up by not understanding how to access the materials they need. Unless you desperately feel the need to teach research skills, provide them with poetry books from which to draw poems if they are assembling their anthologies from already-written works. If they are writing their own poems, provide time in class to do this.
4. Consider having students organize their anthologies around a theme. There are so many poems out there (and so many topics about which to write), that a theme will help guide students in their choices and allow them to find/write poems that speak to their personal interests.
5. Don't be afraid to teach poetry vocabulary. In later grades, students will be expected to know terms like "onomatopoeia" and "alliteration." Introduce these now, and hold students accountable for them by making them identify and/or include poems that contain examples of these in their anthologies.
6. Address form. While it isn't necessary to teach students formal terms like "iambic pentameter" at this age, you may chose to address the issue of form (rhyming, free verse, stanza, etc). You can similarly ask students to find poems that demonstrate these techniques, or to write some of their own.
7. Decorate and celebrate! While this assignment is largely about content, you can ask students to decorate their anthologies to the extent that they can take pride in their finished products. You can then ask them to share these and ultimately house them in your classroom library.