One of my favorite units to teach is poetry. The playing with words, the cleverness of students, and the discovering of new ways to describe a simple object always gives me a thrill. I mean really. How often does one get to use words like hanker after to replace want or quick on the uptake for clever? I love it, but yes, that’s the English teacher in me along with a dozen word games on my iPod Touch.
Today’s post is another freebie to help you with your own poetry units. I’ve pulled a list of poetry generators online along with a few ideas that might help spark a little creativity in you.
Poetry Forms (Fill in the Blank Poetry)
Giggle Poetry’s Fill in the Blank Poems is a simple tool that allows students write the last line to a poem. Probably best for grades 3-5.
Instant Poetry Forms – All language arts teachers should have this site tagged, as it is one of the best resources on the web. Scroll down on the left to preview the poem templates. Students fill in the blanks with their own content and click “Create”. I recommend using this site throughout the year, not just during poetry units. As you read literature, study history, describe nature, or create a holiday gift, students can utilize this site for multiple curriculum units.
Poetry Splatter is a fun interactive fill in the blank poem tool. Choose the type of poem you wish to write, click splatter, and the tool will toss suggested words.
Read Write Think Acrostic Poem is great for younger students.
Read Write Think Diamante Poem gives students a chance to explore diamante poems with this easy fill in the blank tool.
Read Write Think Shape Poems Tool allows the student to choose a theme for the poem (sports, nature, school, or celebrations) to fill in his content.
Write a Song-Poem from PBS is meant for older students. Simply type in lyrics and the interactive will create a melody for the song.
Magnetic Poetry Online Options
Haiku Magnetic Poetry Tool is an easy tool that allows students to drag the magnets into a Haiku format.
iSnoop offers a rather large magnetic poetry area to play.
Magnetic Poetry and Magnetic Poetry for Kids provide you with their virtual kits online.
NetVerse Falling Words Magnetic Poetry never gives you writer’s block as the magnets literally fall from the top of the page. This is also collaborative in real time so multiple students can access it simultaneously and edit the page.
Read Write Think’s Word Mover is a basic magnetic poetry tool except you can add your own words and print. Great for a quick activity with students.
Shadow Poetry offers the ability for students to email their completed poem to the teacher making it easy to grade (students will have to retype the words in the form, however).
Shakespeare Magnetic Poetry – Tis true! Your students can imitate the Bard, himself, with magnetic poetry.
Shocked Poetry is unique as it allows you to choose a theme (love, dogs, coffee, mad scientist) before beginning. Once you begin, you can add in nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. to help spark your imagination. It’s a great site to use an interactive whiteboard.
Online Poetry Generators
You must know that I do not promote poetry being made for students to turn in for an assignment, but I do like how some of these can get a student’s wheels turning. Goodness, I like to play with them just to see if they can give me a giggle.
Metaphor Poetry Generator is a site to enhance your figurative language unit. It offers three poem generators along with other teacher resources.
Poem Generator is actually a great site to help teach grammar and does take a bit of student effort to use. Choose the sentence structure and the parts of speech to generate the poem.
RoboPoem is simply fun. Students write a few sentences or a paragraph in the text box. Choose the number of syllables you want per line, and the RoboPoem generator does the rest. It even inserts rhymes where needed, but don’t count on the poem making much sense.
Tech Poetry Ideas
PimPamPum’s Phrasr is really a fun tool that pulls images from Flickr to visualize your students’ poems. Simply type in a phrase or short poem and press start.
Self Portrait Poems is a lesson that I did a few years back where students described themselves and then took digital photos representing the poem. It’s an easy project that utilizes digital photography, poetry, and PowerPoint.
Also I found this video on TED that features a poet telling his story using emoticons. What a wonderful video to share with High School Poets.
What a wonderful list! This is going to surely come in handy with the students and help with their creativity. Looking forward to working with the programs. grace
ReplyDeleteMs Smoke this post is a great tool for the classroom. Poetry is difficult to teach in third grade, especially for boys. These interactive sites bring poetry to life. The students were begging to go the sites above so they could "play" poetry.
ReplyDeleteWhat youre saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I also love the images you put in here. They fit so well with what youre trying to say. Im sure youll reach so many people with what youve got to say.
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greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat . i like your ideas very much
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