Poetry Unit Lesson Plan

Describe a person in history adverbal-ly

Objective: Included as a part of a poetry unit, and incorporating a previous social studies
research, students will create an adverb poem for a person in history whom they have
been studying. Students will specifically be able to use adverbs, nouns, verbs and a
prepositional phrase to work independently to create describe their person in history.
Through the use of an adverb poem template, students will individually produce their
poem by using three different adverbs for the first three lines of the poem. For the last
three lines of their poems students will complete their poem by using an article, nouns,
verb, and a prepositional phrase. By the end students will have produced an original and
accurate prepositional phrase poem that is neatly recorded in their Writers Workbook.
Background: The adverb poem lesson serves as part of the 3rd grade poetry unit, while
simultaneously drawing upon students previous knowledge of different parts of speechadverbs, nouns, verbs, and prepositions. Students have already been participating in a two
week writing program about poetry. To do so they have already produced two original
poems in by following a poem templates. Additionally, in a previous social studies lesson
each student has researched and written about a famous Civil War hero. To end the two
week poetry unit students will produce another original poem by following a poem
template.
In their Writers Workbook students have already recorded adverbs, adjectives, verbs,
nouns, and prepositional phrases to describe their civil war hero. (Earlier in the school
years students wrote a biography on their Civil War hero and they recorded creative
descriptions for their person in their Writers Workbook). To incorporate students
research on a civil war hero and their knowledge of creative adverbs, nouns, verbs and
prepositional phrases, students will students will write an adverb poem, where one uses
three different adverbs, two nouns, a verb, and a prepositional phrase to describe a
person, place or thing. The adverb poem is 6 lines long. Lines 1-3 use adverbs, line 4 is
an article and noun combination, line 5 is a verb, is the noun plus a prepositional phrase.
Activity: In order to learn the concept of adverbs to describe people students will engage
in a 15 second charades where they individually present their civil war hero to a group of
two other classmates by silently acting how that person would do something (would it be
courageously, sheepishly, terrifying?). They will each choose three adverbs for their hero
and present all three. Each student will take turns acting out and once all three adverbs
have been guessed students will switch to the next classmate. Students will record their
adverbs in preparation for their adverb poem.
Assignment: Today students are going to use their Writers Workbook to create an
adverb poem for a civil war hero. To do so students will draw upon previous notes and
lists they have recorded in their Writers Workbook which creatively describe their Civil
War hero through adverbs, nouns, adjective, prepositional phrases (etc.). They will use an
adverb poem template and their Writers Workbook to record their poem. After the
activity described above, students will use the three adverbs they acted out to write the
first three lines of their poem. Then they will use their Writers Workbook to write lines

4-6 of their poem which asks for a noun and article combination (line 4), a verb (line 5),
followed by another noun plus a prepositional phrase. Once all 6 lines have been
completed, students will have produced their very own adverb poem for a Civil War hero!
Explanation:
This small writing assignment will not only be included in the Writers Workbook, but
will later be used to create a poetry booklet for each student, showcasing their individual
poetry. This specific lesson is able to draw upon students previous research and writing
for their Civil War hero, illustrating to students that they can use their writing in more
than one genre. Furthermore students were able to gain a deeper understanding of adverbs
and how they can be used to poetically describe a person, place or thing. On other writing
days students will have the opportunity to write more adverb poems about other topics
that interest them. Lastly, students learn how to refer to their Writers Workbook for
writing and are given the opportunity to act out words with their peers demonstrating
that writing is not just written on paper, but can be imagined and acted out as well.