I have very recently come across one brilliant and creative idea to help students write their first poems. It appears on a blog by Andreas Lund which focuses on poetry writing by ESL students.

I thought about adding some pre-task activities that could enable students to complete the task successfully:

PRE-TASK:

– What are the main grammatical categories in English? Give at least five examples of each. What function does each category have? For more information on this go to this web.

– Which of these categories can be called “content words” and why? Which ones are “function words”?

– Which are the different ways of making comparisons in English? (if in doubt, you may find this website useful)

– How do we express wishes in English? Give one example.

TASK:

– Write a 5-line poem using this method:

1. On the first line write a noun of your choice
2. On the second line write two adjectives joined by and to describe this noun
3. On the third line write a verb and an adverb to describe this noun in action
4. Start the fourth line with like or as followed by a comparison
5. Start the final line with if only followed by a wish

Here are some examples.

FOLLOW-UP TASK:

Students can use this follow-up task as pre-task as well to get students inspired and motivated.