Teachers, looking to try something different to engage high school students in poetry? A poetry writing competition can be a great activity and goal for a unit or lesson of any length on poetry. Check out all the resources and tips below on how to incorporate our poetry writing competition (or any poetry contest, really) into your classroom.
Bonus: Did you know that April is National Poetry Month in the United States? While you and your students can use these activities anytime throughout the year, many organizations, including Write the World, often run poetry contests in April.
Introducing poetry activities with the ultimate goal of having students submit to a poetry contest where their submission will be read by an expert in the field can increase their motivation and interest. When students write for an audience of real readers, not just a teacher who will grade them, they gain room to explore, take risks, and grow their voices.
Other potential incentives like recognition, feedback from professionals, and prizes can also increase their desire to think deeper and work harder.
And, poetry competitions—and the lesson(s) or unit(s) that scaffold them—can still hit Common Core State Standards. Check out the Write the World Poetry & Spoken Word Competition U.S. Common Core State Standards Alignment document to see how!
You can mix and match the activities below and adjust them as needed for your own classroom structure and time constraints.
Before we write, we read. We read to better understand the techniques that poets use to evoke a certain emotion or have an impact upon the reader. For this reason, try sharing a range of poetry examples with your students, not only by famous poets from different countries and time periods, but also contemporary poems written by teens their own age.
Bonus activity: Ask students to keep a list of poetry terms nearby and see how many techniques and forms they can identify!
In this video, teens from the Write the World community read some of their own poems, sharing them with peers from around the world. Share this video with students to get them inspired:
In preparation for a competition, be sure to use the contest prompt and guidelines as the main writing activity.
If time allows, consider some shorter free-writing prompts to get students writing and ideating quickly. Here are some ideas:
Peer review can be powerful in the classroom, not only for academic writing, but creative writing genres like poetry. Because of the potentially personal nature of the genre, there are a few additional considerations that you may want to add to assignment instructions before asking students to read and review each other’s works. Perhaps a caveat impressing the importance of keeping feedback focused on the piece itself, with the goal of improving the poem while remaining sensitive to the emotional connection that the poet may have with the content.
For support, check out our peer review guide for the classroom for a handy printout to share with your students. And, explore our SEL benefits of peer review article to better understand how this activity supports, not only students’ literacy development, but their interpersonal skills as well.
Tip: Encourage students to enter the competition early to be eligible for Expert Review (from authors, poets, educators, etc.) and to increase their chances of receiving peer review from other teens around the world, not just their classmates. We usually offer Expert Reviews to the first 50 entrants.
Spoken word poems are meant to be heard. The performance elements are part of the craft, meaning writers must think not only about literary techniques on the page but performance techniques, including cadence, rhythm, tone, pacing, and volume. Performing these poems in the classroom can bring them to life to fully share the range of the writer/performer’s message. And, such an activity can help you meet Common Core State Standards for speaking and listening.
Bonus: A capstone activity like performing in front of an audience can be a great opportunity to extend the social-emotional learning benefits of poetry and peer review and engage the community. If the thought of organizing an event is overwhelming, see if you can join or collaborate with other established events, such as pep rallies, theater performances, or community open mics. Additionally or alternatively, filming the performance can provide a memorable keepsake for students and their families—and can also serve as a competition entry (we award separate prizes to winning and runner-up performance poets!).
Check out this handy list of tips for filming spoken word performances.
We hope that you found these ideas helpful for incorporating poetry competitions or contests into your classroom. Have ideas on how to expand this or bring other competitions into the classroom? Let us know at educators@writetheworld.org!