Poetry Friday round-up is with Keri at Keri Recommends
On Tuesday, I posted a Canva image that I had created with an acrostic poem about my One Little Word, Cherish. Michelle Haseltine commented, “Such a simple poem and yet, so beautiful and touching. I am not usually a fan of acrostic poems, but you have me rethinking my position, friend.”
So I decided to make a case for the acrostic poem.
I understand the argument. This form is simplistic and can confine the writer and stifle creativity. However, if we let it, a form can challenge the writer to search for unique language and a stronger meaning.
This week, we worked on our One Little Word projects. I showed my Canva acrostic as a sample. We talked about words and synonyms, making use of the online thesaurus. Type in your word and click on synonyms to find more words. Some of my students took this task seriously and found new and unusual words, like vivacity and whimsical, as their chosen OLW.
Dictionaries were on hand for finding words that started with a given letter. When Jacob came to the letter R in his word, Inspire, he read rainbow, and created the following line.
Some students stuck to the one word for each letter, but some created phrases. Emily decided to make each line have a simile. This pushed her to think not only about her word choice, but also about what each word meant to her One Little Word.
Acrostics are simple, but it can be a good pattern for word play and a deeper search for meaning.
Reflections on the Teche 