Submitted by Fiona Beal
One of the things I love doing with a class is writing poetry. The students come up with the most interesting ideas and words. Playing with words always gives me a thrill. There are so many free interactive sites available that can make the teacher’s task even easier, and the learners experience more memorable.
1. ETTC (Educational Technology Training Centre) – Instant Poetry Forms
http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm
This is a really great poetry site but it can be used for so many other subjects as well. If you scroll down on the left you can preview some of the templates with samples. Students fill in the blanks with their own content and click “Create”.
For example, here is one of their poem outlines:
2. Giggle Poetry
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/index.aspx
Giggle poetry is an award-winning poetry website with many different features, one of which allows students to fill in the missing words at the end of lines of poetry.This site is great for the younger students.
3. Piclits
http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx
I have referred to this site before in my post on 10 creative writing sites, but I love using it for poetry writing as well. It is also a great way to teach the different parts of speech and how they fit into the poem. The students start off by choosing a picture as a background that will suit the mood of the poem.
4. Shape poems
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/shape-poems-30044.html
In this online tool, primary school students can select shapes from four different themes namely nature, school, sports, and celebrations. Within these themes, 19 different shapes are included. What I like about Read Write Web’s poetry sites is they include a lot of lesson ideas.
5. Acrostic poems http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/acrostic-poems-30045.html
An acrostic poem uses the letters in a word to begin each line of the poem. All lines of the poem relate to or describe the main topic word. In this interactive Read Write Web site you can choose your words.
6. Write a song-poem from PBS
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/offthecharts/webkaraoke.html
This will appeal to the older students. They can write a poem by typing in the words, and then the interactive part of the programme will choose music for it.
7. Poetry from pictures
http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/
What I like about this site is that you can type in a keyword and a whole lot of inspirational clips come up. Choose one as an inspiration to write a poem.
8. Poetry idea engine
http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/flash_pie.htm
This site takes you through four types of poetry in an engaging way. Cinquain, haiku, limerick and free verse. I find that the students love it because it teaches you about the type of poem in a fun noisy machine type of manner, and then helps you make your own.
9. Tag galaxy
This is quite an unusual but nevertheless inspiring application. First you choose your topic. e.g. books. A number of words appear on the page. Then you choose your photos. This is certainly something different that a teacher can develop.
10. A poetry wiki
http://thebunnies.wikispaces.com/POETRY
Here is a poetry wiki with an abundant supply of ideas.
