Center Focus

Non-fiction Poetry

  1. Provide several different styles of rhyming poetry for your class to study.
  2. Have each student pick a topic they would like to research. You may want to specify animals, plants, figure in history, or something else you have been studying.
  3. Either provide informational books or let small groups of students go to the library to research their chosen topics.
  4. They should take notes on facts about their topic that they find to be interesting.
  5. They then will take these facts and create a 4 stanza rhyming poem. It works well to have four lines per stanza and rhyme every other line. But they can get as original as they want.
  6. This is a good exercise in language and writing, and it forces the kids to think of synonyms and other ways of saying things.
  7. Share these with the class and display. You can have them make artwork about their subject to display with the poetry.