INFORMATION

WARM-UP ACTIVITIES

Briefly examine structured forms of poetry from students' native languages as an introduction, e.g. Haiku poetry from Japanese.

Make up your own examples, using simpler or more complex vocabulary/topics, to tailor this activity to your particular students' level.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Students work in small groups of 3-5. Each group has one example poem, and the tasks:
   a) Identify the structure / form of the poem (what are the parts of speech in each line); and,
   b) Report orally and informally to the rest of the class on the feeling / tone of the poem.
   c) Answer the questions: What is the relationship between the first and last lines? What is the "middle" of the poem, and how can you tell?
   Students can use dictionaries, as necessary, to figure out unfamiliar words.
   
   
2. Students report on their assigned poems. (Optional: students practice with the instructor orally beforehand and then read their assigned poem to the class.)
   The structural form is then written on the board or screen and/or presented on a handout. Example:
   
   Line 1: Winter = 1 NOUN-A
   Line 2: Rainy, cold = 2 ADJECTIVES-A
   Line 3: Skiing, skating, sledding = 3 GERUNDS-A (verb + -ing)
   Line 4: Mountains, wind, breeze, ocean = 2 NOUNS-A + 2 NOUNS-B
   Line 5: Swimming, surfing, scuba diving = 3 GERUNDS-B (verb + -ing)
   Line 6: Sunny, hot = 2 ADJECTIVES-B
   Line 7: Summer = 1 NOUN-B
   
   
3. Students' observations regarding synonyms, parts of speech on each line, emotional tone, etc. are also discussed / outlined clearly.
   
   
4. Individual groups then "brainstorm" as many possible pairs of synonyms as they can create. The teacher puts the pairs up on the board / overhead screen as suggestions (e.g. school days-holidays, woman-man, student-teacher, love-hatred, peace-war, divorce-marriage ......). Students can use a dictionary and/or thesaurus.
   
   
5. Students and the instructor choose one of the brainstormed topics and write a cinquaine poem together on the board / overhead screen. Optional: copy it down and add it to the class collection if a class anthology is in the works.
   
   
6. Working individually with a template (see sample below), students write one or more cinquaines on the subject(s) of their choice. (Poems can also be written or transferred onto a computer VIA a teacher-prepared template.)

SAMPLE POEMS

TEMPLATE

FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES

1. Students' work can be compiled into a class anthology for reading, autographing, souvenirs, and so on.
   
2. Illustrate poems with handrawn or computer-generated images.