Microsoft Word - CW_Bonnici_I Smell a Poem.docx

Kate Bolton Bonnic i

Poetry Exercises for Elementary School Students

I Smell a Poem!

Writing Multi-Sensorial List Poems

with Elementary School Students

Overview and Goals:

• “I Smell a Poem!” is an interactive presentation/workshop designed to engage young

students in a multi-sensorial approach to writing. Although the presentation focuses on

poetry, the included lessons apply to other forms of creative and scholarly writing. The

presentation/workshop is designed to be brief enough for young students (approximately

30 minutes to one hour), interactive and engaging, flexible, and able to be easily woven

into an elementary school curriculum.

• The premise of the program is this: the strongest writing engages all the senses; children

are fantastically creative and able to make varied concrete and metaphorical connections;

teaching children how to use all their senses in writing poems, stories, and essays will

encourage them to be more vibrant writers and observers of the world around them.

• The goals of the program are to introduce elementary age students to poetry; to help them

generate list poems using the senses of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch; and to

encourage sharing the poems aloud.

• After students write the poems below, provide the opportunity for students to read their

poems aloud.

Materials and Methods:

• Introduction

o Briefly introduce poetry—poetry is a special way of saying something; songs are

poetry set to music; poems can rhyme or not rhyme.

o Introduce the five senses—sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch. Often students

will know the senses and will be eager to volunteer them. Writing the senses on

the board or in some way making them visible will serve as a helpful reminder

and frame throughout the class.

• Writing List Poems

o Poems may be written together as a group with the teacher serving as scribe,

students may write individual poems, or the teacher may utilize a mixture of

methods.

Bonnici Poetry Exercises 2

o Students will need writing paper and pencils. Two pieces of blank paper can be

folded in half to create a “book.”

o Below are various prompts that can be employed to generate list poems, which

are poems created as a literal list of objects or ideas. These poems do not require

complete sentences and may be composed of single words (nouns, verbs,

adjectives, etc.) or sentence fragments running in a list down the page. The

prompt (see below) can serve as the poem’s title.

o Fragrant Objects—have students smell items they can’t see in a paper bag or

objects they can see but cannot identify in a plastic bag (e.g., peppermint extract-

soaked cotton balls)

! e.g., nutmeg, vanilla, almond, peppermint, cinnamon, toothpaste

! Write down, together or individually, how the fragrant objects smelled,

looked, felt to the touch (for cotton ball), what tastes they reminded

students of, how the bags sounded.

! Extra prompt: What color should each scent be?

! Write a list of all the associations, memories, thoughts triggered by the

smells, keeping in mind the five senses

o Classroom Objects & Environment

! your shirt (how does it smell, feel, look? does it make a sound when you

move? does it remind you of breakfast? does it keep you warm? does it

make you think of your home, etc?), the clock on the wall

! sounds/smells of school/classroom (books dropping, lockers clanging,

students talking)

o Places & Associations

! your kitchen (or a favorite food), the doctor’s office

! the park, downtown in a city, the freeway

o Weather & Experiences

! These sensory list poems about more distant objects/experiences will

encouraging students to stretch their imaginations and associations, often

naturally fostering experimentation with simile and metaphor.

! wind, rain, the sun, snow

Bonnici Poetry Exercises 3

! a birthday party, a family gathering, Mars

o Color

! Pick a color

! Write a multi-sensorial list of items (and/or thoughts, ideas, memories

related to that color)

! Part 2: Build another poem that deepens the associative exploration:

What does the color color feel like, sound like, taste like, smell like, look

like? How does this color make you feel?

o Sounds

! Play an interesting sound clip in the classroom (e.g., city sounds, ocean

sounds, winter sounds, bird calls)

! Write list poems while listening to these sounds, using all the senses and

all the associations that can be made – what does the music feel like,

sound like, taste like, smell like, look like? How does the music make

you feel? Is the music a certain color?

• Frames: These frames may be helpful to help younger students formulate their ideas:

_____ smells (like) _____

_____ sounds (like) _____

(I imagine) _____ tastes (like) _____

_____ feels (like) _____

_____ looks (like) _____

Conclusion: Strong poetry engages the five senses in concrete and metaphorical ways. Writers

become vibrant observers of the world around them—and the worlds they imagine—by

describing what they see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Most importantly, students learn through

these exercises that poetry is all around them; they can write a poem about anything from their

own shirts to outer space!