Line Break Explorer

Learning poetry's special characteristics can help students understand, appreciate, and compose poetry. One defining characteristic of poetry is the use of line breaks to create rhythm and rhyme, suggest meaning, and produce a particular appearance. The Line Break Explorer engages children in exploring a poem (shown at left) and hypothesizing about why lines are broken where they are in poetry. Students then experiment with line breaks and how they affect rhythm, sound, meaning, appearance, and can substitute for punctuation in poetry. Their practice with line breaks can be printed out for peer and teacher feedback and discussion.