Learning to recast the text they are reading in a different genre helps make students more insightful readers and helps develop creativity in thinking and writing. The Word Mover allows students to pick out the best words, phrases, and lines from a passage to create a found poem (shown at left).

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

ReadWriteThink Lessons That Use This Tool

A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry (K-2)
Using familiar childhood stories, students will work together to create a poem that is “found” in the language presented in the picture books they read. Children will look in texts for writing that inspires them—looking for favorite words, phrases, and sentences. Working together, students will combine their words and phrases to create a class poem. When complete, the new piece will be shared as performance poetry.

Finding Poetry in Prose: Reading and Writing Love Poems (9-12)
After reading several poems that expand the definition of love poetry, students compose found poems based on a personal memoir—either their own reminisces or a love story of another writer.

Found Poems/Parallel Poems (6-8)
Students compose found and parallel poems based on a descriptive passage they have chosen from a piece of literature they are reading.