I’ll be the first to admit that poetry was never my strong suit. So thinking about incorporating National Poetry Month into Spanish class, with novice or even intermediate students can be a bit scary! Teaching creative writing and poetry in the target language and interpreting figurative language may seem out of reach. But there are so many forms of easy Spanish poetry that you can introduce your students to during National Poetry Month, that by the end of April, they will be writing their own poems in Spanish!
Spanish Poets to Teach About
A Poet a Day
One easy way to incorporate famous Hispanic writers without taking up too much of your “content” time is by learning about one writer per day or week. You can spend a few minutes introducing the writer, their famous works, and maybe reading a sample of their poetry – even one line or stanza could be enough. These mini booklets have some of the most famous Hispanic writers, such as Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Federico García Lorca, and more! The booklets are a great way to briefly introduce the writer and the themes that they wrote about to your novice students.
Research Projects
Your students could research a famous Hispanic writer or a poem or work written by the writer to share with the class. Here are some research posters for students to complete as they learn about a famous writer. If you want to focus on just one poet during National History Month, check out my recent post about using the poems of Pablo Neruda in Spanish class. Learn how to analyze “Oda al tomate” with your 5 senses and strategies to use when teaching students to write their own poems!
Gallery Walk
Post the name, biography, or short poems of a variety of famous poets around your classroom. Students will circulate the room (with post-it notes in hand) and add a fact, question, comment, or reaction to what they see. This could honestly take an entire class, especially if your students are researching as they go (identifying facts about the writers) or if they are interpreting stanzas or poems (writing how it makes them feel or the themes they see emerging).
Writing Poetry in Spanish
Pre Poetry Writing Tips
Always always always brainstorm before writing poetry – you can’t have students write poetry without first brainstorming their vocabulary. When doing creative writing assignments, our students tend to think in their native language, wanting to use any and every word they already know in L1, yet have absolutely no knowledge of in L2. That will only set them up for failure (or what I refer to as the use of Google Translate). Graphic organizers are key to brainstorming, especially for creative writing and poetry. Grab my 7 Spanish graphic organizers for free on the right side of this page. Since poetry uses a lot of figurative language, imagery, and emotion, we need our students to begin thinking that way before putting pen to paper. Here are some ideas for brainstorming:
- 5 Senses – Students use their five senses to create hyperboles and similes about their topic. Once they have narrowed down the topic of their poem, given them time to see, taste, touch, smell, and hear what comes to mind when they think of their topic.
- Parts of Speech – As students write their poem, we want them to use strong, active language and verbiage. For example, advanced learners especially should not always use “hablar,” but maybe switch it out for “decir, murmurar, gritar, etc.” Instead of “caminar,” maybe “correr, gatear, saltar, etc.” – Create a graphic organizer with three main parts of speech, like nouns, verbs, and adjectives. They will think of all words that come to mind within each of those categories.
- Character Analysis – If students are writing a poem about a particular person, including themselves, they should come up with ways to describe this person first. Your graphic organizer might include likes, dislikes, personality traits, physical characteristics, quotes, habits, etc.
Having a long list of vocabulary and ideas to pull from when writing a poem can really make the process much easier. Imagine starting a poem with a blank slate and not a single clue where to begin! Now, imagine having a graphic organizer filled with words, phrases, and figurative language – you may not use it all in your poem, but now you have a starting point and lots to choose from!
Ideas for Writing Easy Spanish Poetry
Diamond poem: Yo soy yo
Diamond poems are simply that – a poem in the shape of a diamond. Students write the poem with a very short first line and each line gradually gets longer until the mid-point, then shorter again, forming the shape of a diamond. This works perfectly for the title “Yo soy yo.” Your very beginner students can write their own poems about themselves, their likes and dislikes, and their personality. The first line is just “Yo.” Line two will be “soy yo.” From there, give students the freedom to use phrases like “me gusta,” “no me gusta,” and “soy” to express themselves. As you can see, even Spanish 1 students can write a diamond poem!
Acrostic poems
This type of poem can be used for any level and any content area. Students choose a word or phrase and write it vertically. Then each line of the poem must start with the letter of that row. To differentiate this between class levels, novice students can write one word per line and intermediate or advanced students can write full phrases or sentences.
You can also modify this type of poem by changing your requirements. Instead of the first word of each line starting with the next letter in the word, students can start their phrase or sentence at any point, as long as the next letter is used somewhere, like this:
Hola, me llama Señora.
YO soy una profesora.
Me interesan Las llamas.
Mi comidA favoirta es chocolate.
Here are some unique ways to use acrostic poems in your Spanish class.
- When reading a story, students choose a character and create a character analysis by writing an acrostic poem with the character’s name.
- During a Hispanic holiday, they create the poem based on the holiday.
- At the beginning of a new unit, students can brainstorm vocabulary that they already know about the new unit or theme. For example, take the main word of the unit, like “medio ambiente” during an environment unit. Instruct students to write an acrostic poem with the phrase. I let them work in small groups and gave them five minutes to come up with as many words and phrases associated with the term and then create a poem. Next, I had the students share out a few ideas and I wrote their ideas on the board, forming a big poem together. This makes the traditional brainstorming session a little more fun and forces the students to think outside the box!
Haiku
A haiku is a poem with three lines. The first line has five syllables; the second has seven, and the third has five as well. With such a short format, our students can easily write a haiku poem with their limited language and vocabulary.
The first time I had my students write haiku poems was when we were studying Fernando Botero, the famous Colombian artist known for voluminous figures in his artworks. My colleague who is quite the creative writer composed a haiku poem entitled “Las ballenas” to describe Botero’s painting “Picnic” with an obese couple enjoying a sunny afternoon picnic. Her creative writing and figurative language to compare these lovers to whales helped our students better understand the use of exaggeration in poetry.
We then let our students choose any other Botero work that we had studied and create their own haiku poems. As I said before, do not let them begin writing their haiku without first brainstorming. Then, they will have a ton of words to choose from as they carefully craft each line with the appropriate amount of syllables
Odes – poems of praise
An ode is a poem of praise or expression of fondness. Writing an ode should be fairly easy for your students as they have complete creative liberty – no syllable or line requirements, and they get to choose a topic that is near and dear to them. When writing an ode, they want to express a love, passion, or fondness for this item.
Your students can take direct inspiration from poet Pablo Neruda who has become known for his odes to ordinary objects, like “Oda al tomate.” Check out this blog post with a complete guide for teaching about easy Spanish poetry odes like “Oda al tomate” and having your students write their own odes.
If your students read poems by famous Hispanics, grab your free Annotation Markings chart so they can really interpret the poem to the best of their ability.
Shape poems
Another style of poem that doesn’t have any strict writing requirements is a shape poem. The only true requirement is that it is written in the shape of the object you are writing about. So, if you are writing a poem about a tennis player, then you must first draw a tennis player. Your poem text will go around the outline of the tennis player or within the image, like you see below.
Choice Board
Since poetry may not be everybody’s cup of tea, let your students choose which style of poem they want to write. Some may prefer an acrostic poem, others an ode. Read more about using choice boards to differentiate in the classroom here. You will need to be careful when creating a choice board like this though, as each style of poem is different in requirements. Where a haiku is only 3 lines, an ode could be a whole page! You need to set some requirements such as write 3 haikus or write an acrostic poem with a word/phrase with at least 10 letters, etc.
Even if you don’t have a lot of free time in April to devote to National Poetry Month, I still hope you find some ways to incorporate creative writing and easy Spanish poetry! Any of these poems can be used with any unit, you just may need to switch up your normal plans of writing assessments for something a bit more creative!
And for those of you that teach elementary students, be sure to check out Lit By Learning who has some great free resources for teaching poetry in elementary class.
Make sure to display student poetry on your classroom walls or in the hallway – let them know you are proud of their creativity. Poetry is not an easy task, especially in the L2, so take time to praise them and show off their work!
