If you’re an English teacher, looking for fun poetry activities for high school or middle school students, I’ve got you covered. I’m opening up my poetry toolbox and sharing some of my favorite (and most successful) poetry games and activities! Whether you’re looking for a stand-alone lesson or something more, there’s something here for everyone.
The creation of pop sonnets is one of my favorite poetry activities to use in conjunction with the reading of a Shakespearean play, but it can be used as a stand-alone lesson. The hook is that modern-day songs have been turned into Shakespearean sonnets. You can study one of Shakespeare’s sonnets and ask students to modernize it. Then, work in reverse by re-working a modern-day song as a sonnet. Or, just use this as a “hook” to help students feel more comfortable with Shakespearean language. Take a look and thank me later.
Studying modern-day songs is a great way to teach about figurative language and poetic devices while studying poetry. Try reading the lyrics, but omitting or re-writing the metaphors and talking about the change in message/meaning. Look for examples of imperfect rhyme in one of Eminem’s cleaner songs. Study poems as paired texts. Analyze lines from a famous soundtrack. Ask students to bring in their favorite songs and discuss. So. Many. Options!
Students need to know that poetry is not dead. It’s living. It’s breathing. It’s storytelling. It’s cool. In April, my classes come alive with the magic of slam poetry as students become authors and performers. They re-discover wonder and learn to let down their guard. They learn that there is intersectionality between their story and the stories of others. They are appreciated. They appreciate others. When I use this fun poetry activity for high school students, my classroom really becomes a true community.
Grab my slam poetry “mini” unit to get your students started with slam poetry!
Not sure which slam poems are school-appropriate and engaging? Here are 40 of my favorite slam poems!
This poetry writing activity is FREE if you’re willing to grab some paint chips from your local hardware store, preferably ones with multiple colors in one. Or, Amazon sells an awesome paint chip poetry “game.”
This is an oldie, but goodie poetry writing exercise for high school students. Copy a page or two from a whole class novel. Or better yet, choose a completely divergent text, maybe a science textbook or page from a dictionary. Students string together words on the page to form a poem, and black-out the rest of the words. If they want to go above and beyond, they can create an original illustration to accompany their blackout poem.
Take your students to the library (or have them browse a site like Goodreads) and challenge them to create poems from book titles. Each title becomes a line in the poem. An optional challenge: have students choose (or randomly draw) a theme, and their poem has to relate to their chosen theme. If you’re looking for some FREE templates, I’ve got you covered: Click Here! I created these templates as a quick fun poetry activity for high school sophomores after my librarian told me that having my classes pull so many books would be a pain to re-shelve.
A lot of teachers are loving my reading progressive dinner stations. Poems are short and accessible texts that always rock when used with this activity.
Here are some options for poetry stations, a fun group poetry activity:
If you’re studying word choice and tone in poetry, why not have students transform a poem, switching from one tone to another? Then, have students write a reflection analyzing why they made 4-5 important changes.
This poetry activity is exactly what it sounds like. Have students choose / cut-out words from magazines to form “found” poems. Or, have students listen to a TED talk or story, writing down a certain # of words they hear. Then, ask them to use these words + ones of their own to write an original poem.
If ’tis the season, you might as well use those plastic easter eggs you may have lying around. Put “poetry inspiration” in each egg. At the very least, I suggest a word or phrase. If you want to go “all-in,” create a combination of the items below:
Tell students that their challenge is to write a poem inspired by these objects. Or, if you prefer, have students incorporate words / ideas from each object in their poem.
If you’ve never seen the site “Favorite Poem Project,” I suggest checking it out as a poetry unit resource. The site’s goal is to interview a variety of different people about their “favorite poems.” In each short video, an individual shares a personal connection to his/her poem and reads the poem out loud.
After being a fan of this site for some time, I decided to have my students make their own “favorite poem” videos. They explored, chose a poem that they liked “best,” and created videos on Flipgrid discussing their thoughts about the poem and reading it aloud. These videos were then viewed by classmates. Everyone enjoyed this a lot!
Taylor Mali, the very first slam poet I ever listened to (and still one of my favorites), has a ton of great poetry writing exercises for high school students on his site HERE. His best-selling metaphor dice are a great way to get students to think “outside the box” when it comes to poetry writing. This is a really fun poetry activity for high school students! Each new metaphor is a different poem!
Using mentor texts for writing is a powerful strategy for poetry instruction, yet one that I find myself “skipping” because there isn’t time. I have to remind myself to “make” the time because it’s important. If we’re going to spend time analyzing texts, it only makes sense to have students try to use those writing moves in their own writing. After all, students should be writing frequently, and not always for an assessment grade.
A fun activity to fill extra class time, or just for fun: magnetic poetry. Give each student (or pairs of students) a handful of magnetic poetry pieces. See what they come up with. Take pictures and display around the room.
Sort of like magnetic poetry, but with a twist, it’s fun to set-up an interactive bulletin board as a fun poetry activity for high school students to try before or after class. You can do this in several different ways.
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Lindsay has been teaching high school English in the burbs of Chicago for 19 years. She is passionate about helping English teachers find balance in their lives and teaching practice through practical feedback strategies and student-led learning strategies. She also geeks out about literary analysis, inquiry-based learning, and classroom technology integration. When Lindsay is not teaching, she enjoys playing with her two kids, running, and getting lost in a good book.
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