Joyful Offerings: Poems of Gratitude

I enjoy November. The season gives me the time and opportunity to practice gratitude. I’m also always looking for ways to have my students engage in that same practice, and I find that poetry is one of the most meaningful and engaging ways to do it.

Today, I’d like to share two of my favorite poetry exercises for reflection and appreciation.

The Details

Important Poems. The first is a general activity to help kids appreciate things in life that go undervalued or unappreciated. To do that, we begin with Margaret Wise Brown’s The Important Book.

Together, we read this charming collection of poetry, and we notice the patterns:

• All of the poems are about objects or ideas that go unnoticed or undervalued.
• The first and last line repeat: “The important thing about ____ is ____.”
• The most important thing about those objects or ideas is actually within the poem, not in the first or last lines.

The students always have a wonderful time creating their own:

Forced Association Poetry. Just as it’s important to recognize and appreciate things in life, it’s important to recognize and appreciate people in life. For that, I enjoy teaching students the power of forced association.

Forced association, the act of connecting two completely different ideas, is a powerful tool for expanding and extending metaphorical thinking. The exercise may feel strange at first, but it unlocks creativity and encourages thinking in new directions. Whether you plan on doing the poetry activity or not, the following questions are great to try with students:

• How is a teacher like a fishing pole?
• How is a mom like a refrigerator?
• How are friends like pizza?
• How is an idea like a bar of soap?

From there, students think of their favorite thing out in nature, and associate it with an important person in their lives. Using the same forced-association thinking, they write a poem about that natural thing and title it with the name of the person. Ideally, students won’t actually mention their person in the poem itself, just the title. 

Students were astonished at the power of their work:

One Final Thing

The holiday season is a time to take stock, to reflect. It’s also a time to offer loved ones sincere gratitude, in whatever earnest form that may take.

In that spirit, I’ve composed a short ode for all of you in the Two Writing Teachers community:

The important thing about writers is that they write.
They are thoughtful,
They make me feel seen,
They offer community
In moments
I feel adrift.
They filter this wide wide world
Through lenses I hadn’t 
Thought to imagine,
Reminding me
I, too, have things to say
But the important thing about writers is that they write.