Procedure

Tell students that they are going to write a poem about their hometowns. This particular exercise involves you offering a verbal prompt and students responding in writing. Before beginning the activity, however, emphasize that poetry should be expressive, descriptive, and streamlined. Encourage the use of precise, descriptive words and discourage the use of non-descriptive words, such as big, the, this, it, there.

Then, distribute and go through the Hometown Instructions handout, one line at a time, and allow students sufficient time to think about a response and write.

After students have completed their initial drafts, have them go back over their poems to identify and replace non-descriptive words. During the editing stage, students may also decide to rework their lines so that they rhyme (as in the student sample in Figure 1), but rhyming is not necessary.

Enrichment

To do any enrichment activities, you should wait until after the writing has been completed. Once the poem has been written, you may want to have students link the words in the poem with photographs, music, drawings, or other sensory stimuli. Students can compile everything into a slide show (using PowerPoint or the free version available through www .openoffice.com) or film. If a slide show, I suggest a maximum of one line written out with accompanying image/music per slide. If a film, I suggest having students write out the lines to the poem during the editing process so that the lines of the poem become titles, or having students write out the lines to the poem on an object, then film them. For example, one shot might show a student writing the lines on a blackboard or in a text message.

Hometown Instructions

Write your poem following these guidelines:

Line 1    The place where you grew up and a verb (2 words)

Line 2    The landscape with analogy (4 words)

Line 3    The smell or taste of your hometown (6 words)

Line 4    Music, song, or sounds that remind you of your hometown (8 words)

Line 5    The kind of people who live there (10 words)

Line 6    An important event in your life (12 words)

Line 7    An important event in your life (12 words; You may repeat the above line or write a new one.)

Line 8    A dream or nightmare (10 words)

Line 9    Physical traits of an influential person (8 words)

Line 10    The specific advice or truth someone once gave you (6 words; Perhaps you heard it from the person mentioned above. Try to write out their advice specifically, then delete the quotations marks.)

Line 11    Effects of the weather (4 words)

Line 12    An analogy for your hometown plus a verb and whatever else you feel like throwing in for a last line (2–10 words)