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Found Poems

My Grade 9's are in the middle of a poetry unit in English.  When I introduced the unit, I received more than a few disgruntled sighs.  I heard a lot of "I hate poetry," "Poetry is so boring," and "I'm so bad at poetry."  However, I have made some conversions through Found Poetry.

 To create their found poems, my students were given a random piece of text (I photocopied various pages of whatever books were in the copy room), and they were asked to find words and phrases to put together to create a new poem.  Their new poem had to have a cohesive thought and a consistent theme or message.

 When they had chosen their words, they were asked to illustrate their new poems to highlight the theme, mood, or tone of the poem.

 I was really impressed with what they created, so I thought I'd share with you.







When they had finished illustrating their poems, they wrote reflections on why they stylized the poems the way they did and looked for poetic devices in their new poems.  I was really happy with the lesson, and my Grade 9's seemed to enjoy it as well.
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