Relating skills to what is actually being read is always a good practice. Skills practiced in isolation on a worksheet do not always transfer to actual reading. The one caution here is that we do not do this to excess. The main purpose of reading the poems is to create enthusiasm for reading. Always turning it into a skills drill can defeat that purpose.
Examine the poem to decide which skill to work on. If the poem has numerous contractions, then use that poem to work on contractions. If it has many short vowel words, use it to work on short vowels. We can make these oral activities or make up a worksheet for the students to complete as a written assignment.
Some of the skills I worked into these sessions:
Ä Find synonyms/antonyms. We would say a word and the students would search for a synonym/antonym. Sometimes we told them in which stanza to search.
Ä  Work on alphabetical order using words from old poems.
Ä  Use words from old poems in word sorts.
Ä  Find the nouns, verbs, adjectives.
Ä Find the contractions and possessives. Since both have apostrophes, the students had to use the context to decide which it was.
Ä Paraphrase a short poem. We can see the rhythm of the poem disappear as it turns to prose. It really illustrates the difference.
I. CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES IN TEACHING & LEARNING POETRY
- Literature Circles: Give each group of students’ different anthologies or different copies of individual poems to read and discuss. The teacher may request that students find poems that all focus on a specific theme or allow students to select poems that appeal to them as a group.
- Poetry Journals: Have students keep a poetry journal throughout the unit in which they copy or paste poems that appeal to them, along with their responses to the poems. Their responses may be written answers to questions such as the following: What interests you about the poem? Do the ideas in the poem connect with other selections that you know? Does the poem connect with a personal experience you have had? Encourage students to add illustrations or pictures to extend their responses. As well, they may wish to include their own poetry.
- Children’s Poetry Anthology: Have students assemble a collection of poems. Encourage them to illustrate these with their own drawings or cut-out pictures. Extend this project by having students practise reading these selections aloud, then visiting an elementary school to read aloud to students of the appropriate age.
- Oral Reading or Recitation: Have students choose a poem to read or recite aloud to their Literature Circles or the whole class. They may do this individually or in Readers Theatre or choral reading groups.
- Poetry Partners: Have students in the same or different grades partner to share their own and other poetry. Provide opportunities for them to read aloud to their partners and to discuss their experiences with each selection. Have partners develop an anthology of favourite selections, including partner dialogue responses recorded next to each poem.
- Teacher Read Aloud: Read poetry aloud to the students daily. Talk about why you enjoy the poems. This provides opportunities to introduce and discuss specific poetic formats, styles, techniques, and language. For example, one way to introduce how description is used in poetry to evoke images is to give students copies of the poems so they can follow along as they listen, and ask them to draw what they think the poem describes. Then have them circle the words that helped to evoke the images that they drew. Discuss how the circled words created the images and how students can use the technique in their own writing.
- Prose and Poetry – What’s the Difference?: One way to help students understand what differentiates a poem from other forms is to have them read and compare a short story and a poem about a similar topic. Have them create a chart or Venn diagram on which they list the similarities and differences between the two genres. Another way to help them discover distinguishing characteristics of a poem is to give them short paragraphs that paraphrase the poems they will read; then have them read the paragraph and match it with the poem it paraphrases. Follow up with a discussion about the similarities and differences between the prose paragraph and the poem.
- Writing Poetry: Use models of various types of poetry and have students experiment with writing each type. Some types of poetry include haiku, limerick, lyric, sonnet, diamante, concrete, ballad, and free verse. Encourage students to go through the writing process just as they do when writing other genres.
- Looks Like … Sounds Like: Audio and video recordings are useful as models of oral reading of poetry, and demonstrate the need for expression and clarity. As well, video recordings combine words with images to give students one interpretation of the poem. Encourage students to create their own audio or video interpretations of favourite selections (their own and/or others’ poetry).
- Sounds Like – Teaching about Similes and Metaphors: Have students close their eyes and listen to the sounds around them. Then ask them to isolate one sound and focus on it for several seconds, imagining what it sounds like. Have them create sound pictures by writing what the sound is like (e.g., A tapping pencil sounds like a clock ticking.).
- Set to Music – Performing Poetry: Select poems or song lyrics that can be, or have been, set to music. Have students work out the meaning conveyed through the words and rhythm by speaking or singing the poem to the music chosen. Encourage them to involve the audience by having members participate  in  the  chorus  or  repeated phrases.   Have  students  develop
appropriate actions to accompany the words.
- Poetic Dialect: Read several poems that use distinctive dialects. Examine the words and phrases and discuss the differences between standard English and the dialect, or between the students’ use of language and the dialect in the poem. Explore how the dialect affects the meaning and enjoyment of the poem for each student.
- Meet the Poet: Have students select several poems by one poet, then research the poet and share their findings with the class in written, oral, and/or visual form. If possible, invite a poet to class to read his or her poetry.
