Slam Poetry!

We had our second poetry lesson with Islesford last week! Such fun stuff happening it is hard to keep up!

We started as a large group and Ms. Esynogle shared a poem with us that was about writing poetry! We share our thoughts and opinions about the poem as a group.

Then we split into the 6-8th graders and the 3rd-4th graders. I took the olders and we took a look at Slam Poetry! Slam poetry can actually be ANY kind of poetry (limericks, sonnets, free verse, whatever) but there is a focus on expressing that poetry through spoken word.

We took some time and looked a clips of different teenage poets presenting their work at poetry slams! Pretty inspiring stuff. We brainstormed a list of what we thought were elements that made really strong "slam poems."

Here was the list the kids came up with:

Elements of Slam Poetry:

- emotion

- fast speaking /rhyming

- an idea!

- poem needs to breathe

- rhythm

- feeling

- care

- energy

- passion

Then it was time for the kids to write. They did an exercise called "Then... Now..."

They wrote furiously until the end of the period. We are going to take some time this week to share our poems and then work on a different exercise. We want the kids to have a few different poems to choose from to present at our first EVER Virtual Poetry Slam at the end of March! SO cool! Stay tuned for details!