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**Congratulations to Donna MacDonald, winner of Lee Wardlaw's WON TON, A CAT TALE TOLD IN HAIKU. Please contact Lee with your shipping address. **
Acrostic poems are written by taking the letters of a word or name and using them as the first letter of each line of the poem. I like to use acrostics in both in my writing and in my teaching, even outside the language arts classroom. In social studies for example, acrostic poetry can be a very useful way of exploring a topic. Sometimes I give students an exercise to write an acrostic poem about Canada. Most of them end up starting with the word “cold”!
After starting with this students have the makings of an essay outline with paragraphs about Canadian climate, vegetation, history, culture (we are known worldwide for saying “I’m sorry” a lot), political system, and a conclusion.
*A printed dictionary is essential for this exercise. All the more reason to do it. Kids should use dictionaries more often.*
Both in and out of language arts, there are several ways of approaching the writing of acrostic poetry. Say we wanted to write a poem about “Mothers”. We might write something like:
This is the simplest kind of acrostic – basically it’s just a list of adjectives that fit the word you choose. Another thing to do is to use short phrases or sentences instead of single words.
Make our breakfast
Open their hearts
Think of us first
Hold us tight
Enjoy our successes
Read to us
Say “I love you” to us every day.
Now we have a more detailed description of mothers. This poem talks about the things mothers do for us. But that’s not the end for acrostics. Another approach is to go back to single words, only this time all the words together make sentence about your word. Like this:
Now finally we can go back to our phrases and sentences. Only this time we can make them connected into one idea. Kind of like this:
Maybe we don’t appreciate that they’re the
Ones who make us who we are
They selflessly, carefully
Help us grow. To them
Every child is like a seed in a flower garden.
Rising up, our petals open in their
Sunlight
The great thing about using acrostic poetry in the classroom is that students can write about any topic that interests them, and at a level they are comfortable with. More advanced students can write with complete sentences while struggling students will get a sense of accomplishment from completing the simpler word list form.
Even within a topic, students can narrow their focus to suit their interests. Writing about Canada, some students might focus on sports:
While some might prefer to focus on wildlife.
Caribou
And moose
Narwhal
And seals
Ducks
And Canadian geese.
We’d all love to get more poetry into the classroom, as well as new ways of approaching curriculum materials in general and the development of writing skills in particular. Acrostic poetry is a great way of doing all these things.
As writers and poets acrostics can help us to get to know our characters or explore our themes. Certainly as a verse novelist, a simple acrostic can sometimes salvage an otherwise unproductive day.
And we all have those.
Gabrielle Prendergast is the writer of the feature film HILDEGARDE, starring Richard E Grant. HILDEGARDE was also published as a novel by Harper Collins Australia. She wrote for the cartoon series Gloria’s House and Fairy Tale Police Department and worked on the drama series White Collar Blue. Her middle grade novel, WICKET SEASON was published in the Spring of 2012 with Lorimer Publishers. AUDACIOUS and its sequel CAPRICIOUS will be published by Orca Books in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
Gabrielle is also a creative writing teacher and mentor specializing in helping gifted young writers (11-21), reluctant writers of all ages and pre-literate writers up to age 7.
1. There is no yesterday; there is no tomorrow. There is only you, scratching me under my chin right now.
The best haiku emerge from a right-this-instant experience – or from a memory of that experience. Always use present tense to heighten immediacy and authenticity in your poems.
2. When poised at a hole, remain still – and use your ears, eyes, nose, whiskers and mouth to detect a lurking gopher.
Observation is crucial to haiku. One must quiet the mind and use all five (or more!) senses to absorb, appreciate, and anchor the moment.
3. Be patient. Then, when least expected – pounce!
Haiku captures a moment in time, revealing a surprise or evoking a response of a-ha! or ahhh. This pounce helps the reader awaken and experience the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
4. Most cats have18 toes – unless we’re polydactyl; then we might have 20, 22, even 28 toes!
Japanese haiku feature a total of seventeen beats or sound units: five in the first line, seven in the second, five again in the third. This 5-7-5 form doesn’t apply to American haiku, however, because of differences in English phonics, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Forcing an unnecessary adjective or adverb into a haiku simply to meet the 17-beats rule can ruin the flow, brevity and meaning of your poem. So feel free to experiment with any pattern you prefer (ie; 2-3-2, 5-6-4, 4-7-3) – provided the structure remains two short lines separated by a longer one. Remember: what’s most important here is not syllables but the essence of a chosen moment.
5. When I’m out, I want in; when I’m in, I want out. Mostly, I want out. That’s where the rats, gophers, lizards, snakes, bugs and birds are.
Traditional haiku focus on themes of nature, and always include a kigo or ‘season’ word. This doesn’t mean you must be explicit about the weather or time of year. A sensorial hint (ie; a green leaf versus one that is russet-colored) is all that’s needed.
6. What part of meow don’t you understand?
Tease a cat and it won’t bother to holler – it will bite and scratch. It shows its annoyance rather than tells. Good haiku follows suit. Instead of explaining, haiku illustrates a meaning or emotion through vivid imagery. Your poems should create a mental picture that captures the resulting feeling it evokes.
7. If you refuse to play with me, I will snooze on your keyboard, flick pens off your desk, and gleefully shed into your printer.
Yes, haiku has ‘rules’, but remember to play! Use words as toys, and frolic with them in new ways to portray images, emotions, themes, conflicts and character.
8. When in doubt, nap.
Good writing comes from revising. Set aside your poems and allow them to ‘nap’ for a few days. Then revise them with rested eyes, alert ears and a fresh mind. And if too much rewriting causes the weary, bleary blues, well, there’s always that comfy looking couch…
Lee Wardlaw is generously offering a signed copy of her picture book WON TON -- A CAT TALE TOLD IN HAIKU (winner of the 2012 Lee Bennett Hopkins Children's Poetry Award and the 2012 Myra Cohn Livingston Poetry Award) for one reader. Leave a comment below to enter. The contest closes Monday, 8 April. US residents only, please.
Lee Wardlaw claims that her first spoken word was ‘kitty’. Since then, she’s shared her life with 30 cats (not all at the same time!), and published close to 30 award-winning books for young readers. Her picture book WON TON – A CAT TALE TOLD IN HAIKU won the 2012 Lee Bennett Hopkins Children’s Poetry Award and the 2012 Myra Cohn Livingston Poetry Award. A companion title, WON TON AND CHOPSTICK, will be published by Holt in 2015.
Click through to sign up for the National Poetry Month giveaway!
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By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 4/2/2013
Blog:
Caroline by line
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I've been preparing behind the scenes since January, working with eighteen different teachers, readers, librarians, authors, and poets to bring you their thoughts on poetry. For the rest of the month* this space will be devoted to their words. I'm excited to share these wonderful posts with you and to join in the discussion !
4/3 -- Jennifer Gennari :: Opening the Heart of Characters Through Poetry
4/4 -- Paul Hankins :: Coming Back to Poetry and Leaving the Textbook Behind
4/5 -- Lee Wardlaw :: 8 Things I Learned From My Cats About Writing Haiku
4/6 -- Caroline Starr Rose :: Words Inspiring Words -- a Poem for Sharon Creech's LOVE THAT DOG
4/8 -- Lisa Taylor :: Three Poems and Why I Know Them
4/9 -- Gabrielle Prendergast :: Using Acrostic Poetry Both In and Out of the Language Arts Classroom
4/10 -- Paul Janeczko :: Poetry is to Share
4/11 -- Rosanne Parry :: The Reluctant Poet
4/12 -- Anne Greenwood Brown :: Victorian Poets and Paranormal Romance
4/15 -- Jessica Bell :: The Vignette
4/16 -- Augusta Scattergood :: Learning by Heart
4/17 -- Robert L. Forbes :: Looking Out the Window
4/18 -- Laurel Garver :: Stories that Sing -- Poems with a Plot
4/19 -- Amy Ludwig VanDerwater :: Poem Spools -- Stitch by Stitch
4/22 -- Jayne Jaudon Ferrer :: C'mon, Give It Another Chance
4/23 -- Margaret Simon :: The ABC's of Poetry
4/24 -- Kathryn Fitzmaurice :: On Destiny and Emily Dickinson
4/25 -- Kathryn Burak :: First Poems and My Mother -- The Sleever and Muse
4/26 -- Theresa Milstein :: Becoming
4/30 -- Giveaway winner announced
*4/29 We will return to our Lucy Maud Montgomery Read Along discussion briefly before the final poetry post on 4/30.
Giveaway:
Congratulations to swag pack winners, LynNerd and bfav, and THE YEAR THE SWALLOWS CAME EARLY winner, Rebecca Kiel.
Over at the Class of 2k12, we're trying to come up with helpful, new ways to give back to readers, teachers, librarians, and booksellers. With that in mind, I've created a very amateur video I'm calling Poetry 101.
Thanks for sharing with us today, Gabrielle. I love how many different directions you can take this. I could see this as a great tool for character study.
I love acrostic poems. You are so talented. I have my own poetry month celebration going on at my blog as part of A to Z Month.
Here is a link:
http://mary-anderingcreatively.blogspot.com/
Mary Hill
So perfect for National Poetry Month!