Poetry Unit

Because poetry does not have to adhere to grammar conventions as much as other genres of writing do, it is wise for us to remember that this stage of the writing process is about “getting text ready for readers,” not “correcting it.” As writers, our goal at this point is to ensure that our work is presented as we wish readers to read it.

We can, therefore, revisit a mini-lesson on How to Read Poetry, having students exchange work with a new partner, reading aloud using punctuation, line breaks and white space to determine how the poet wants the text to sound. An example of such a mini-lesson is provided below.

Or we can focus on spelling, teaching a strategy for identifying misspelled words in a text and finding the correct spelling.

We can also think of this stage as a chance to “fancy up” poems before publication—placing them on special paper or creating illustrations as a publisher might do before sending the text to print.

As in other units of study, editing is a short stage that takes 1-3 days in the classroom. We do not expect students to be accountable for knowledge we have not explicitly taught, though we can encourage and expect them to use editing skills learned in other units, if applicable to poetry.