Students write free-verse acrostic poems about themselves using the letters of their names to begin each line. They then write an additional acrostic poem about something that is important to them. After proofreading, both poems are recopied or typed and illustrated and then mounted on construction paper for display. Several opportunities for sharing and peer review are incorporated.
The use of children's names in reading and writing activities can bring personal meaning to literacy work. Lucy McCormick Calkins, in The Art of Teaching Reading, emphasizes the value of using words that matter to children and describes a classroom scenario in which young children use their own names for a variety of literacy activities. Mariana Souto-Manning takes it a step further, emphasizing the importance of respecting students' names as part of a diverse classroom community. "By highlighting the importance of names and their many meanings and accents across cultures, languages, and places, we can create a space for acknowledging the identities children embody and move one step closer toward genuinely valuing diversity in classrooms." By using their own names as a starting point for writing free-verse poems, children are using words that are important to them while learning and reinforcing initial letter sounds."(2)
Further Reading
This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.
This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.
