Teaching Free Verse Poetry in Elementary School

Teaching free verse poetry in elementary school can be a bit intimidating. Here are a few tips to help tackle free verse poetry!

Oh the dreaded free verse. The words together, with not pattern or rhyme. Free verse poetry is one of the hardest to teach in elementary school because it has no rules. But, your kids… they expect the rules, the periods, the indenting, the complete sentences they just learned to write.

Let them step outside of the box with free verse. To help get kids started, give them “Feature Words” to string together in some way. These can be just 3-4 random words or they can all be words that fit a content area topic. Try to use one word in each line of the poem. Below you will find some suggestions (these are in your downloads for today as well).

Teach Free Verse Poetry with these simple steps:

1. Create lists of words to combine together.

2. Model writing, editing, and revising several examples as a whole group or in small groups.

3. Give writing time for students to write. You will have kids who will have trouble with making this look like a poem instead of a paragraph. Model breaking it apart with them.

4. Have an Author’s Share to help students understand this style of poetry. Here is a list of guiding questions to help with Author’s Share time.

5. Try using these poetry books as read alouds. The article Poetry Books Kids Love will give you several options.

Take me to the article: Poetry Books Kids Love!

Click below for a full poetry unit.

• 2nd Grade Poetry Unit
• 3rd Grade Poetry Unit
• 4th/5th Grade Poetry Unit

Happy Writing,

Jessica