Writing a Shape or Concrete Poem - Creative Writing - Mentor Texts

Make reading and writing poetry fun with this lesson for Shape (Concrete) Poems. After reading poems, students use mentor texts as models for their own writing as they take their creative ideas through the writing process with a focus on the six traits of writing (ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions).

The lesson starts with a “puzzling” warm up (using online links to Rebus puzzles); then, students read and analyze sample shape poems including "Seal" by William Jay Smith and poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (online links are provided to the texts). Finally, students write their own shape poems.

Students are guided step by step as they brainstorm simple shapes and write words and phrases that they associate with those shapes. Next, they use the pre-writing activities to draft their own shape poems, and then they use peer revision and editing to write polished drafts that are evaluated with a six-traits rubric.

This 12-page resource includes the following:

-links to sample poems online (to respect copyright)

-an explicit lesson plan with Common Core ELA Anchor Standards

-poem analysis graphic organizer

-poem analysis key for "Seal"

-activity handout

-peer revision handout

-rubric

-two sample student poems (one from a 6th-grader and one from a special needs 9th-grader)

If you like this lesson, you may be interested in my other Inspired Writing lessons that employ mentor texts:

Imagist Poetry

Dialogue Poems Inspired Writing!

Memorial Design & Speech Writing

I've Been to the Promised Land

Aphorisms

Memoirs

Meaningful and Memorable English Language Arts by © OCBeachTeacher ™

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