Prewriting and Drafting

This is the stage in which the fifth graders began to write their ideas on paper. This helped them decide which kind of poetry they wanted to use for their final copy. Mrs. Stockdale provided each classroom with a Rhyming Dictionary, so the fifth graders could find words that rhymed with other words that they chose to use in their particular poem. The different types of poems are:

Rhyming Poems
Concrete Poems
Acrostic Poems
Riddles
Event Poems
Alphabet Poems

As they experimented with these types, they were thinking about which one of them they would send to the author. They were told to do the best job they could, since this was such a formal compliment.

When the fifth graders worked on three or four poems, they took a break and looked over their work. They decided which poem they liked best. It was important that the selected poem was edited and rewritten in a good copy, which you will find out more about on this next page. Click on the link below to see how the poems were edited and rewritten.