Less can often be more—especially as students explore the theme of a work of literature through analytical writing. Writing haiku offers a student in the final draft stages of a paper an innovative way to determine if the paper says what he/she means it to say. Students can “lose their way” when writing analytical papers, resulting in wordy, tangled papers with the thesis obscured. To alleviate this problem, students create haiku that, in seventeen syllables, encapsulate the heart of the paper. Because of its brevity, haiku promotes clarity of thought. It further challenges students to work on focused revision.

Students explore the ballads genre by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and composing their own ballads.

What's that sound? Students participate in a Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DLTA) using "The Tell-Tale Heart," make predictions, and respond in the form of an acrostic poem or comic strip.

Students read sonnets, charting the poems' characteristics and using their observations to deduce traditional sonnet forms. They then write original sonnets, using a poem they have analyzed as a model.

Through a study of Langston Hughes' poetry, students connect his writing to his place in history.

After reading John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player," students write poems describing themselves five years in the future. The teacher takes the poems and mails them to students in five years.

Writing poetry is a great exercise for English language learners. It gives them a chance to experiment with language and vocabulary, and to freely share their ideas without the confinement of perfect grammar or firm structures. Here are some suggestions for getting started from Kristina Robertson, as well as different kinds of poems to try!