This is a one-hour lesson I completed with 9th-graders. We followed up on “The Raven” and poetic devices we had dicsussed previously. I then read a poem titled, “Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?” by Robert Koertge from the poetry 180 website. It’s theme is about writing and addresses the process of writing. I transitioned this poem and its writing discussion into an grammar exercise, noting that writing incorporates a purposeful choice of langauge for a variety of effects. Writing also incorporates basic grammatical elements,such as: gerunds, infinitives and adverbs (the class was in the middle of studying those parts of speech). So……I had them go on a word search in newspaper and mags to find phrases and words to cut out and create their own Acrostic poem around the word, “WRITER.” I also included examples of the kinds of acrostic poems I was looking for.

They had to include at least one gerund, infinitive and adverb in their poem.

Supplies needed:

glue, scissors, publications, constrution paper or other heavy duty paper on which to mount the poem on.

“Do you have any advice for those of us just starting out?”

Acrostic examples and activity handouts

Some discussion and writing topics that can be used to coincide with the study of Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Henry V discussin/writing ideas