Photo by Lidya Nada on Unsplash

1. Emoji Translation: For this exercise, one student constructs a poem entirely out of emojis, and their partner “translates” the poem into English. For this to work, the student who wrote the emojis can’t tell the translator what their intention was — the fun comes from the different potential interpretations. You can turn this into a bigger group project by having several translators for each emoji poem. Or, if students want to work solo, you can provide the emoji poems for them to translate; feel free to use this worksheet I generated with my partner, Veronica.

This exercise was inspired by two New York poets I know, Stephanie Berger and Carina Finn who wrote a whole book using this method. I’ve had students write some amazing poems this way. Not only does it give students permission to be less formal and more conversational, but students feel less exposed — the one writing the emojis doesn’t feel any pressure to say something “deep,” and their partner feels less scrutiny because whatever they write isn’t seen as a reflection of themselves. It also opens up discussions about how emojis are, in fact, language and what their linguistic function is. And it teaches that translation isn’t math — it’s a creative act.

2. The Worst Poem You Can Think Of: Ask students to write the most cliche, cheesy poem they can. This is a great exercise to use early on — because you’re asking students to write something “bad,” they won’t feel self-conscious about expressing themselves or sharing their work with their peers; there’s an ironic distance that allows students to cut loose. The lack of pressure often leads to surprisingly brilliant poems. And when they are actually terrible, it’s an invaluable way to illustrate the pitfalls of bad writing — after all, it’s harder to explain how to do something well than it is to demonstrate what to avoid (and it’s nice to point out those pitfalls without shredding some poor student’s ego). It’s also a good way to discuss objective vs. subjective judgment when offering constructive criticism, an essential distinction when setting the tone of a creative writing workshop.

Photo by Chris Lott on flickr

3. Erasures: Also known as “blackout poetry,” you generate a poem by taking another piece of writing (a page from a newspaper or magazine, for example) and blacking out words with a marker. Whatever words remain are the poem. If you want to have a Dead Poets Society moment, get some old books that the library was going to get rid of and have students rip pages out for their erasures. Make it cross-disciplinary by collaborating with the art teacher — instead of just blacking out the words, paint over them (check out Tom Phillips’ A Humument for a mind-blowing example). This exercise is great for breaking writer’s block; since you’re starting with someone else’s words, there’s no blank page to intimidate you. It’s also a great way to get students to see creative potential in the everyday.

4. Flarf: Flarf started out as a prank, and a sense of rebellious playfulness is built into its DNA. It’s all about stitching together nonsense. There are different approaches, but it’s best to keep it simple: create a short nonsense phrase (2–3 words) and Google it in quotes (“Peach Rocket” instead of Peach Rocket). Look through the Google search results (you can click on the websites OR just look at what Google shows you). Grab random words and phrases you like and assemble them into a poem. Use this worksheet I made, which includes the instructions, two examples, and a space for students to create their poem. I like this exercise because it’s interesting to see how even the most random phrases, when stitched together, will make some sort of sense. It’s silly, but sometimes you’ll strike gold, creating a metaphor or phrase that could only have happened by accident.

Photo by Jon Luty on needpix

5. Guerilla Poetry: Have students brainstorm fun ways for people to encounter poetry outside the classroom. My students did this once by slipping poems inside their peers’ lockers, but there are lots of different options: sidewalk chalk poems, magnetic poetry on the lockers, sneaking poems into the daily announcements. The students can use their own poems for this project or just poems that they love. If you really want to go big, brainstorm ways to take it outside the school and bring poetry to the larger community.