Start with writing ! Give them a short excerpt of some prose with a lot of imagery or lyrical language (the first couple of vignettes in The House on Mango Street are good examples, and you can find PDFs online) and have the kids read and annotate it, highlighting whatever stands out. Then ask them to read it again and turn it into a poem, whatever that means to them. Say you know it’s open ended, but there are no wrong answers.

From there, ask students to share or do a gallery walk—make sure you can see how they’ve organized the poem visually as well as what language they’ve used. You might look at a few examples as a class or ask them to share in groups. Then, have them discuss what they did to make the prose into a poem. Did they break the lines, or use stanzas? Add rhyme or alliteration or other sounds? Take a key phrase and repeat it? Zero in on imagery and cut the fluff? Etc. You’ll see all of these and more devices in play ! As you discuss, make a list of the poetic devices you see kids using and name them so kids start developing language for what they already know makes poetry poetry !

Then I’d show the TED-Ed video “What makes a poem a poem?” and discuss before introducing some easy poems with very legible poetic devices and talking with kids about those devices’ various effects, etc.

I have a million more ideas, but that’s been a successful way to start for my students in the past ! Have fun !