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.

Visit this interactive tool at: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/lb_explorer/.

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

Choosing One Word: Summarizing Shel Silverstein’s “Sick”  (K-2)
After reading a text in the classroom, students work together to determine the one word that summarizes that text. This comprehension activity requires students to work together and highlights their ability to justify their word choice.

Letter Poems Deliver: Experimenting with Line Breaks in Poetry Writing (3-5)
Letter poems make poetry accessible, meaningful, and fun. Letter poems are also an apt medium for exploring a defining characteristic of poetry—line breaks. Students explore letter poems and experiment with writing letters as poems, using the placement of line breaks to enhance rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.

The Connection Between Poetry and Music (3-5)
Music is a close cousin of poetry. Many poems have a strong rhythm and song lyrics may read like poems. This lesson teaches students the connection between poetry and music and encourages them to hear rhythms in both their own poetry and that written by others.

What Makes Poetry? Exploring Line Breaks (3-5)
Learning poetry's special characteristics helps students understand, appreciate, and compose poetry. One defining characteristic of poetry is use of line breaks. Students explore various poems and why the lines are broken where they are. Then they experiment with varied line breaks and how they affect rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.