Time Travel – Sharon Olds - practising writing a poem (2 lessons)

This poetry writing pair of lessons were initially taught to Year 8 pupils but it can be adapted to suit any year group.

Lesson 1

To understand a poet’s use of stanzas and be conscious of stanzas in planning our own poem. To identify the different uses of stanza breaks.

To analyse the stanza breaks in a poem.

To plan our own poems being conscious of stanza breaks. CONTENT: students define what a stanza is and how poets can use them; read the poem ‘Time Travel’ and answer the following questions; storyboard activity – students imagine four memories and link them together in the same structure as Sharon Olds’ poem ‘Time Travel’; students consider what the final word will be in their poem

SKILLS: Developing the understanding of how to use stanzas, enjambment, end stops in poetry and the reasons for their use. In the storyboard activity, students need to think of a specific place, an entry to this location, their age at this time which will equate to the creation of four separate stanzas. Copy of the poem – Time Travel by Sharon Olds

Printed copy of the storyboard worksheet

Lesson 2

To continue using the structure of an existing poem to write our own. To convert the ideas you explored in the last lesson on your storyboards into a poem.

To edit and refine our poems being conscious of sensory details and stanza breaks.

To create a final version of our poems. CONTENT: Revisit the theme of memory; explanation of the key techniques – enjambment & caesura; students write up draft versions of their poems; edit & refine; write up in neat

SKILLS: Embedding WT in students’ own poetry On slide 18 students can use written prompts to help them structure their writing.

Slide 19 encourages the students to edit and improve their poems before writing it up in neat.

Students perform their poems to class practising oracy skills. From last lesson - Copy of the poem – Time Travel by Sharon Olds

Printed copy of the storyboard worksheet as well as the PPT slide prompts on slides 18 & 19