My English Pages

Grammar poem

This is an activity that helps students develop an awareness of both grammar and writing skills. It can be carried out in a one-period session.  No materials are required apart from a pen or pencil and sheets of paper.

The activity

It’s just a 2 – 6 line poem. Best assigned to practice some language points such as grammatical categories.

• Review grammatical categories.
• Tell students to come up with examples of grammatical categories.
• Tell students that they have to write a poem having this form.
  1. Noun
  2. adjective + and + adjective
  3. verb + adverb
  4. Like or as …
  5. If only …
  Of course you can think of other combinations:)
• Provide an example like this one:

Politician
phoney and false
lying desperately
like a mocking bird
if only I had the key to the bird cage

(source http://home.online.no/~anlun/gram-po.htm)

• Give students time to read and understand the poem meaning and its structure.
• As a homework or in class they write similar poems
• Peer editing and final draft to be handed in for correction