8 Activities for Teaching Poetry in Middle School

When it comes to teaching poetry, you either love it, or you loathe it. In my case, I’m a pretty big fan. But, that doesn’t mean my students always were. Middle school students often struggle with understanding and enjoying poetry because of the challenging devices, critical thinking, and inferencing skills involved. Luckily, I have some fun and engaging activities for poetry that will help your students see that poems don’t have to be scary.

These activities for poetry will take your students to the next level and go beyond simply memorizing poetic terms and elements. I suggest using these activities as stations after you’ve already introduced the basic concepts and laid the foundation. Otherwise, students won’t be able to deepen their understanding when working independently.  

(PS. All the activities listed below are a part of my 6th Grade Poetry Stations Resource!)

#1 Figurative Language

During this poetry station, students will review definitions and examples for various types of figurative language, then identify that figurative language in song lyrics. I’ve found that songs are the perfect way to review figurative language because, well, middle schoolers are obsessed with music (how many Airpods have you collected today?).

Music can take away some of the fear around working with poetry and give students a familiar text to work with. Plus, you can use their favorite songs in the lesson (just make sure it’s not explicit).

#2 Poetry Annotation

In this station, students will work together to analyze and annotate two different poems. This activity helps students practice finding notable phrases, analyzing the title, dissecting the mood and tone, and more.

If you grab the 6th Grade Poetry Stations Resource, you’ll notice I chose two poems by young authors. I believe analyzing poetry written by young people adds an element of relatability and helps students see poetry as a modern type of writing!

#3 Poetry Analysis

In station three, students will read poems out loud and provide their interpretations of the poem. Provide guiding questions to steer the conversation and help students with their analysis. This activity will show students that every person has a different interpretation of a poem. There isn’t one “right” answer.

In the 6th Grade Poetry Stations Resource, the two poems included are quite different structurally, which makes for a really rich conversation while analyzing. I also included guided questions to keep students on topic and provide support during analysis.

#4 Types of Poetry

Students will work with their group to match the poem type to the correct example poem. This is a simple and hands-on way for students to review the definitions of the types of poetry. Students might struggle a bit with this at first, so I suggest providing a reference sheet to use during the activity.

In the Poetry Stations resource, I include the definition on the vocabulary cards, so students can easily review the classifications for each poem. You also have ready-to-go examples, you just have to print and cut.

#5 Poetry Terms

This activity dives deep into the terminology students need to master in order to analyze poetry fully. Give students a list of poetry terms, such as verse, rhyme, refrain, and more. Then, provide them with two to three poems. Students will read each poem and find an example of each term within the poem.

These vocabulary words can be challenging! I suggest repeating this station often, but switching some of the terms or poems to keep the practice feeling fresh!

#6 Verse Novel Tasting

If you’ve been here awhile, you know I love book tastings! So, it’s no surprise that it’s one of my favorite activities for poetry. A verse novel tasting can introduce students to new books and show the diversity in the types of poems and topics out there. Yep, kids! Poetry is more than love sonnets.

Select several verse novels for students to look at and have them rate the books on how interested they are in reading them. In the 6th Grade Poetry Stations Resource, there are several book lists to help you select verse novels and a recording sheet to make this station simple.

#7 Rewriting Famous Poems

Of all the activities for poetry, this one may be my favorite. I love providing opportunities for students to be in the driver’s seat for a “pick your own adventure” type of activity, and this is the perfect one. 

Have students read famous poems and then use their creativity to rewrite them in their own style. For example, they might rewrite a Shakespeare poem as a Hip Hop freestyle. The options are endless, and students can get as creative as they want. Bonus points if you give students time to share in class.

#8 Blackout Poetry

This is probably one of the more classic activities for poetry, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to include it on the list. Using an old book or even a printed passage, have students black out parts of the page, only keeping the words they want to show. This activity always works well for students convinced they can’t write poetry (Surprise! You can!).

If you grab the Poetry Stations Resource, I included examples of Blackout Poems to help explain the activity to students.

Grab all eight of these poetry stations inside my Poetry Stations Resource. You’ll get access to all of the printables, digital resources, table tents, activity directions, and more to make setting up these stations a breeze.

There are enough stations and material in here to take 2-3 class periods, depending on the length of each class. You’ll also get access to reference materials that students can use way beyond these stations, such as the poetry term page.

As you plan your poetry unit, keep these activities for poetry in mind. It’s a good mix of basic and higher-level thinking activities, so you can challenge students’ poetry knowledge. If you want even more activities for poetry, check out this blog post here, where I discuss four of my favorite poetry activities for middle school!