Teaching Diamante Poems to Compare and Contrast

Teaching diamante poems engages students in critical thinking as they use key words to demonstrate their understanding of a topic.

Diamante poems are similar to cinquains in that they use parts of speech organized in a specific pattern, but the diamante compares and contrasts two topics. In these poems you can teach or review nouns, verbs, and adjectives. You can also focus on word choice and have student use a thesaurus to pick their best words for the poem.

Diamantes are great to use for content area assessments.

Here are a few suggestions for teaching diamante poems.

1. Compare operations in math (subtraction, addition, multiplication, and division), shapes, fractions and decimals, and prime and composite numbers.

2. Compare and contrast states, Native American tribes, the Jazz Age and the Depression, famous americans, and explorers.

3. Compare wars or battles studied.

4. Compare and contrast producers and consumers, carnivores and herbivores, types of minerals, planets, and measurements.

You can create a Mystery Poem interactive display and have the titles covered. Let other students try to guess the topic of the poem based on the nouns, verbs, and adjectives used in the poem.

Use the template to help students follow the pattern. Have them add illustrations to help their readers learn more. And keep those dictionaries, thesauri, and textbooks handy for research and finding the best word choice.

Grab the Free Poetry Templates in the FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY

Poetry is a great way to review for testing. Take topics in a unit to give to students to review their understanding. It is a great way for students to demonstrate what they have learned, as well as, spark conversations about the topic that may need to be reviewed.

Learn more about assessing with Haikus.

Learn more about assessing with Cinquain Poems.

These poetry resources will have your students engaged and exciting about reading and writing poems.