Anonymous Poetry

Many assignments within any poetry unit often involve students creating their own works.  When given, these projects can spark fear and dread. However, there are methods and activities that can ease student anxiety about presenting/sharing personal expression with their peers. One technique commonly used and very successful is “anonymous poetry.” 

Just like the term implies, anonymous poetry is poetry that does not identify the author. It’s the perfect way to encourage genuine self-expression in a safe environment. I have included some general ways to incorporate this tactic into a poetry unit. Feel free to adapt these suggestions to match the needs of your classroom.

Whole/Small Group Poetry Writing—Prior to giving a formal poetry writing assignment, I often have the entire class compose a poem together. To do this, I give students a prompt—typically a noun to start with. Each student constructs a phrase using that specific noun. Once students have practiced brainstorming with nouns a few times, I then include actions and locations. All the student suggestions are compiled in a bag or basket and then randomly pulled. The pulled phrases are used to create the poem. Prior to students writing, we decide on a general topic for the poem. Although the final product might not make sense, the overall goal of students exercising their creative writing skills is achieved. This same process can be used with small groups as well. 

Round Robin Poetry Writing—This is a fun activity that works better with smaller groups. Essentially, the process involves the creation of the first line of a poem. (Each student should do this).  Next, the sheets are passed out to students in each group.  Each student contributes a line. Finally, once the poems have been shared a sufficient number of times, the completed poems are recited to the rest of the class.

Poetry Slams—This is a performance-based activity. (I would incorporate the activity toward the end of my poetry unit once the students have spent some time writing.)  The format for this activity varies based on the audience, environment, theme, etc . . .  The basic procedure is that the students create some kind of personal poem. The poems are then read aloud to the rest of the class. The key is that the author is not necessarily revealed.  You may wish to have one speaker who reads all the poems or pulls poems at random and then take volunteers to read.

Here are a few others:

• Place large Post-it papers to the walls. Have students move about the room and add lines to the poems.

• Find a few poems that students are familiar with, or perhaps, already read in class.  Have them rewrite the poem. The topic and structure should stay the same.

• Have students select their favorite song and rewrite the lyrics, but, again, keep the topic and structure the same.

• Create a list of various words—people, places, things—and have students create a poem using these words.  The words should be pulled at random, regardless of the order.

Here are some more lessons that include anonymous poetry activities.

Poetry Lessons:

Stage a Poetry Slam!

This lesson gives some great tips on how to use a poetry slam in your lessons as well as additional adaptations.

Creating Poetry

Rather than doing a poetry slam, the students replicate a "coffee house" setting.  Again, the created works could be read randomly.

The Language of Surprise

This lesson addresses cliches used in poetry. The students explore this element and eventually write their own poems. I like the format of the lesson as well as the activities included. There are also some suggestions of poems to use.