How to Write a Paragraph Based Poem
Because students often find the most difficult part of writing poetry is coming up with subject matter, the paragraph-based poem is a perfect method for introducing young people to poetry writing. The instructor models a process that takes a paragraph from any source and turns it into a piece of poetry. Then, students are given several paragraphs to choose from and they create poetry on their own from these paragraphs. Teachers have the advantage of providing students with prose containing poetic elements, making it easy for young writers to come up with satisfying results.
Instructions
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Begin this lesson by modeling the process. Select a paragraph from any prose source you wish, make copies of it, and explain to students that together you will be writing a poem based on the paragraph. Write on the board—and explain--the following terms: “form,” “imagery,” “voice” and “conciseness.”
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2
Instruct students to circle any examples of imagery they find in the paragraph. In other words, ask them to find information that talks about the five senses (how does something look, smell, taste or sound), comparisons that are descriptive, and any other words or phrases they may be able to use when they turn the paragraph into a poem. For example, in the sentence “I turned the WORN and RUSTED key and the lock SQUEALED LIKE A PIG,” they would want to keep the capitalized words.
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3
Pay attention to voice. Explain to students that if the paragraph is written in first person, the poem will be as well. The “I” in the poem will continue to speak of herself or himself and words such as “my," "mine" and "me” will be used.
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4
Ask students to go through the paragraph and cross out all words that do not add to the meaning of the poem and are present mainly because they are dealing with a piece of prose rather than an example of poetry. For example, the following sentence could lose all of the capitalized words for the purposes of this lesson: “The boy WE ARE TALKING ABOUT WHO STANDS at the top of the ladder WHERE WE CAN HEAR HE IS singing boisterously about ALL THE ADVANTAGES OF going to sea.”
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Discuss the difference in form between a paragraph and a poem, noting that the poem is written in lines rather than sentences. You might also point out that some poems have more than one stanza with space between the stanzas. However, the poem you will be writing as a class will only have one stanza.
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Ask students to take all the remaining words they have left in their paragraph, taking special note of any imagery they have found, and arrange those words in poetic lines. For example, the sentence in Step #4 might look like the following:The boy at the top of the laddersings boisterously about going to sea.
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Continue working on one paragraph-to-poem lesson as a class until there is a general agreement that the poem is completed. Then, hand students a choice of paragraphs to try the activity on their own.
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Tips & Warnings
For poetry material, go beyond paragraphs from literature. Some non-fiction materials, such as news magazine articles or instructions for operating electronic equipment can be turned into poetry.
Be sure to point out to students that this is not a trick assignment. There is absolutely not one correct way to transform a paragraph into a poem. There are as many possibilities as there are poets.
