Building your students' interest in poetry begins with reading poetry. Begin each poetry lesson by reading a poem or two aloud to your students or having them read a poem. Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky are ideal poets for younger children. There are several options available for middle and high school students including poems by Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson. Enlist a different student each day to come up with a poem for the next day's class. It only takes five minutes to read a poem or two.
At the start of each poetry class, instruct your students to write in a journal. This should be a free writing activity in which students are not concerned with spelling and grammar. The most import thing is that they get their thoughts out on paper. These reflections can be written about anything and everything and can be used later for poetry ideas.
Give your students a specific word or have them use their names. Then write the word vertically on a sheet of paper, one letter to each line. They then need to come up with a word or phrase that describes the first word and begins with each letter of that word. For example, if the word was "love," the acrostic might read "Living Out of Vigorous Emotion."
End your poetry unit with a poetry quilt. Give each student a piece of stationary cut in three by three inch squares. Each student's paper should have a completely different pattern. Tell your students to each choose his favorite stanza from his favorite poem. He should write the poem as neatly as possible on the stationary. Have the students glue the squares to a poster board. When they are finished it will look like patchwork poetry quilt.