Combine teaching these pattern based poems with the “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” writing program and your students will be both highly effective and highly creative authors!

Diamante Poems

Keys to the Diamante Poem:
• Has seven lines formed in the shape of a diamond.
• You can base the poem around either synonyms or antonyms. What’s similar or what’s the complete opposite?
• Using antonyms seems to be the more popular version. “Two sides of the same coin” is a fun and interesting concept to explore. It’s the “ying and the yang” that makes it so much fun!
• There is a turning point midway through the poem where the focus shifts from one subject to the other subject.

Outline:
Line 1: One noun (Subject 1)
Line 2: Two adjectives describing the Subject 1 noun
Line 3: Three Gerunds (verb + -ing) connected to Subject 1
Line 4: Four nouns – Two connected to Subject 1 and two connected to Subject 2
Line 5: Three Gerunds (verb + -ing) connected to Subject 2
Line 6: Two adjectives describing the Subject 2 noun
Line 7: One noun (Subject 2)

Example:
Puppies
Funny, playful
Ripping, running, licking
Ball, leash, bell, mouse
Stalking, sleeping, watching
Silly, cuddly
Kittens

Rhyme Schemes

 To really use rhymes in an effective manner rhyme schemes are important for the teacher to be aware of. Rhyme schemes most often represented using the letters “A” and “B.” Rhyme schemes show you the pattern of the rhyme.

Examples of rhyme schemes:
AABB – hat, cat, top, mop
ABAB – hat, top, cat, mop
ABBA – hat, top, mop, cat
AABA – hat, cat, top, sat

Rhymes 

Word families are a great place to start with rhymes.

 –ack, -ail, ake, -all, -ame, -ank, -ar, -ash, -ate, -ay, -eep, -ell, -ick, -ide, -ight, -ile, -ing, -ink, -it, -oat, -ock, -oil, -oke, -ook, -oom, -ood, -ool, -ore, -ought, -ouse, -ow, -ump, -unk!!

Nursery rhymes are riddled with these word families.

Fun Idea – Choose a nursery rhyme and try substituting different word families.

Example:
Hickery, dickery doc, the mouse ran up the clock.
Becomes::::
Hockery, dockery, ick, the mouse became quite sick.  

Acrostic Poems

Keys to the Acrostic Poem:
• The letters in the title of your poem become the first letter in each line of your poem.
• If the title of your poem is “HAT” your poem will be three lines and if your title is “ELEPHANT” your poem will be eight lines.

Example: HAT
Held on the tip-top of your head,
A thing of warmth or beauty,
To be worn, warm, and admired!

Quatrains

Keys to the Quatrain:
• Four lines
• There are many different rhyming patterns that can be considered correct. (Alternating, Enveloping…)
• Many follow these rhyme schemes (AABB, ABAB, ABBA, ABCB, AABA)
• It is great (but not absolutely necessary) if you can make the rhyming lines have the same number of syllables!

Example:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
              By William Blake

Cinquains

Keys to the Cinquain:
• Five lines
• Unrhymed
• Contains either a word count or syllable count. Modern versions use the word count.

Outline:
• Line 1: One noun that is both the subject and title.
• Line 2: Two adjectives describing the Line 1 noun.
• Line 3: Three verbs with –ing that tell an action related to the Line 1 noun.
• Line 4: Four words in a complete sentence that describe a feeling about the Line 1 noun.
• Line 5: One word that means the same thing as the Line 1 noun.

Example: Beach
Beach
Sandy, salty
Swimming, playing, sunning
I love the beach.
Seashore

Haiku

Keys to the Haiku:
• Three lines
• No rhyme. 
• Nature based
• Count the syllables!

Outline:
• Line 1 – 5 Syllables
• Line 2- 7 Syllables
• Line 3 – 5 Syllables

Example:
Cold arctic winds blow
Around majestic glaciers
Now melting, soon lost

Limerick

Keys to the Limerick:
• Contains five lines
• It’s a joke, a rhyme, a funny poem all wrapped up in one!
• Contains one couplet and one triplet. (Line 1, 2 and 5 rhyme. Lines 3, 4 rhyme.)
• Often contains exaggeration, play on words, and just plain silliness.

Example:
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!’
          By Edward Lear

Clerihew 

Keys to the Clerihew:
• Four lines
• Lines 1 and 2 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme. (AABB)
• Line 1 contains the name of a character.
• Light, funny, and even silly.

Example:
Robert Wise
The horse he road was a big surprise.
It is tall and big, and I don’t know how
But it seems the horse he rides is really a cow.

Couplets, Triplets and Quadruplets

Keys to Couplets, Triplets and Quadruplets:
• Can be an entire poem in itself or just one part of a larger poem.
• Rules and complexity seem to vary on couplets, triplets and quadruplets based on how simple or complex the teacher wants to make it for their students.
• Each line rhymes, most of the time.
• Each line contains the same or a similar meter.
• Ideally each line will have the same number of syllables.
• Couplet – Two lines that rhyme and have the same or similar meter.
• Triplet – Two lines that rhyme and have the same or similar meter.
• Quadruplet – Two lines that rhyme and have the same or similar meter.

Tanka

Keys to the Tanka:
• Five lines.
• Each line has a specific syllable count.  (5-7-5-7-7)
• Does not rhyme
• Traditional themes are nature, seasons, friendship, and love 

Outline:
Line 1: 5 Syllables
Line 2: 7 Syllables
Line 3: 5 Syllables
Line 4: 7 Syllables
Line 5: 7 Syllables

Example:
Happy days are here
Good weather and my good friends 
Spending time well spent
Days are long and time runs fast.
Grateful in life, day and night.

Free Verse

Keys to Free Verse:
• No set pattern or structure.
• Doesn’t rhyme or have a specific rhythm. However, it is acceptable if there is some rhyme or some rhythm.
• Often used to express “deep thoughts” or “deep emotions.” 

Example:
The wily winds blew down barren landscapes.
Free yet contained by natures forces.
Caught in the middle,
A pioneer,
Heading west, west, west…

Simile

Keys to Similes:
• Compares things that are unalike.
• Uses the words “like, as”
• Have some fun and use “as if” and “as though”

Example:
The little boy rode his tricycle proudly, as if he were the ruler of both land and time. 

Metaphor

Keys to Metaphors:
• Makes a comparison of two things by saying that one is the other.
• If the question is “To be, or not to be?” with metaphors the answer is “It is!”

Examples:
• It is raining cats and dogs…
• All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
William Shakespeare: As You Like It

Alliteration

Keys to Alliteration:
• Words in a sequence which begin with the same stressed consonant sound.
• Alliteration makes things easy to remember and easy on the ears.
• Why use alliteration? Just ask a kid!  “Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, Fred Flintstone, Woody Woodpecker, Wonder Woman, Road Runner, Porky Pig, Roger Rabbit, Richie Rich, Mighty Mouse, George of the Jungle, Huckleberry Hound, Peter Pan, Captain Crunch…”
• Why use alliteration? Just ask, “Coca Cola.” It has worked well for them!

Are you a true lover of poetry? Are you an avid and exceptional teacher of poetry in the classroom? If so… then this article is not for you.

This article is for the rest of us teachers who know that poetry has value… but with limited time and so much to cover… poetry needs to prove its case.

Poetry for Teachers Who Prefer Math and Science

Some have felt they were missing the point… or the value of teaching children to write poetry. It just wasn’t their style… and they thought they sounded kind of funny when they tried to explain the profoundness of poetry in being able to uniquely express the human condition.

These teachers understood that poetry could be fun, interesting, artistic, and beautiful. Great! But they wanted more than fun, interesting, artistic, and beautiful. There had to be some kind of “academic” reason for teaching poetry that students would understand and apply… beyond poetry.

Like many teachers, I myself suspected that poetry had the power to communicate to children what ordinary essay and report writing could not. I suspected poetry could be harnessed for academic gains and not just artistic revelry.

The goal for me with poetry was not to simply transform children into “poets” but also to transform them into “skilled and observant communicators.” I believed and dreamed… that poetry had the potential to help transform students writing… across the curriculum!

Here is what I discovered along the way…

Six Traits, Poetry, Patterns, and Communication

I’ve long felt that being a skilled communicator is among the most valuable assets that a person can possess. Even if a person ends up in a science or math oriented profession, being able to effectively communicate one’s ideas will likely have a larger impact on a career than the ideas themselves. A truly skilled communicator has complete mastery over the words they use and the meaning those words convey.

The “Six Traits of Writing” along with “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” has transformed my teaching of poetry in the classroom. When teaching poetry I now achieve many goals that transfer over to all of the writing that my students do… across the curriculum.

Out of the six traits found in the “Six Traits of Writing” model it seems that there are three traits that are inherently intertwined with the teaching of poetry writing to children. They stand out for me because I find that I am able to communicate their concepts very effectively when teaching poetry… and the concepts learned transfer over into all the writing my students do. This makes teaching poetry fun… and a good use of time!

Three Traits of Poetry Writing Which Improve Student Writing… Across the Curriculum

1. Organization and structure - The most popular forms of poetry that children are taught all seem to have a very definite pattern and structure. They are powerful and compact patterns that create powerful rhythm and meaning. By putting focus on the structure and the pattern in these rather simple poems you can help children to see the organization and structure in much of what they will both read and write… across the curriculum. (If you have used “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” with your students, you will find that these poems and the patterns found within them are almost a natural extension of the Pattern Based Writing program. Be sure to go to the “PatternBasedWriting.com” home page and see what I mean…)

2. Word choice and usage – The major poetry patterns have descriptive use of language built right into the pattern. Each word in student created poetry is carefully chosen and each word has a specific intent within the poem. Students often consider many choices for that one valuable word in that one specific position. When you have only 17 syllables for an entire poem… you have to be very picky and consider many different word choices… until you find the one that is just right! I’ve found it’s pretty easy to transfer this skill over to students’ essay and report writing.

3. Voice – Often a complete and unique voice is both started and completed in as little as 17 syllables! The most popular poems children are taught to write are powerfully condensed units of expression. It is easy to compare these short poems and clearly hear a unique voice in each one of them. When you compare a Limerick to a Haiku the shift in voice is… an easy teaching moment.

Getting the Most Out of Poetry

Poetry has a lot to offer in helping students to become artistic poets as well as successful students. Using a combination of “Pattern Based Writing: Quick and Easy Essay” and the “Six Traits of Writing” model will transform your teaching of poetry writing into both an artistic and academic endeavor!

Be sure to read “Popular Forms of Poetry to Teach Children” and discover over 15 different types and aspects of poetry that children just love!