night found poem assignment

Found Poems/Parallel Poems

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Students compose found and parallel poems based on descriptive literary passages they have read. Students first select a passage and then pick out descriptive words, phrases and lines. They then arrange and format the excerpts to compose their own poems. Students create found poems (poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text) as well as parallel poems (original poems that use the same line structures as another poem, but focus on a completely different topic.) This process of recasting the text they are reading in a different genre helps students become more insightful readers and develop creativity in thinking and writing. Since students are primarily identifying nouns and verbs for use in their poems, the lesson also provides a relevant opportunity for a grammar review of these two parts of speech.

Featured Resources

• Word Mover : This student interactive allows students to drag and drop words from a passage from famous works or a word bank to create a found poem.

From Theory to Practice

One of the strongest ways to teach students about how poets and poetry works is to encourage them to write their own poetry. As Dunning and Stafford explain, the advantage of found poems is that "you don't start from scratch. All you have to do is find some good language and ‘improve' it" (3). These two teachers note that "poems hide in things you and others say and write. They lie buried in places where language isn't so self-conscious as ‘real poetry' often is. [Writing found poems] is about keeping your ears and eyes alert to the possibilities in ordinary language" (3).

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 9. Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles.
• 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• Prose passage chosen by student or teacher
• Model of Found and Parallel Poem
• Found Poem Instructions
• Love Found Poems Rubric
• Student Assessment Sheet for Found Poems
• Sample Found Poem

Preparation

• Choose a text for students to use as the source of their prose passages. You might use a book that the entire class has read recently, choose books that students have read in literature circles, or have students use books that they have read independently.
• Make copies or an overhead transparency of the Found Poem Instructions , Model of Found and Parallel Poem , Student Assessment Sheet for Found Poems , and Love Found Poems Rubric .
• Test the  Word Mover on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.

Student Objectives

Students will:

• select a particularly descriptive passage in a piece of prose fiction.
• identify significant words, phrases and sentences in the passage.
• arrange the excerpts into a found poem.
• compose a parallel poem, using the same structure as the found poem.

Session One

• Ask students to choose a prose passage from a text they have read. Have them focus on identifying a page or two that includes a lot of strong description or dialogue.
• Explain that the class is going to use the passages to compose original poems, called found poems and parallel poems.
• Pass out or display the Model of Found and Parallel Poem .
• Read through the passage and the two poems, pausing to explain the poetic form of each of the poems. You can provide more examples found in the links in the Resources section.
• Define found poems for the class as poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text.
• Define parallel poems as original poems that use the same line structures as another poem, but focus on a completely different topic. Some words from the original poem are retained, but some words are replaced with new words.
• Ensure that students understand how the examples on the model sheet fit the two poetic formats.
• Pass out copies of the Love Found Poems Rubric , and have students analyze the Sample Found Poem using the criteria on the rubric.
• Step students through the process of composing original found poems, using the Found Poem Instructions .
• Introduce the  Word Mover and allow time for students to practice rearranging the words into found poems.
• For homework, ask students to return to the prose passage that they have chosen and use the Found Poem Instructions to write their own found poems for homework. Explain that students will compose parallel poems during the next session so they should have a completed found poem ready at the beginning of the next class.
• Ask students to be sure that they bring two copies of their found poem to the next session—one to share with peers, and one to use as they compose their parallel poems.

Session Two

• Arrange students in small groups and have them share their found poems with one another.
• Encourage students to compare the poems to the criteria on the Love Found Poems Rubric .
• As groups work, circulate among students, providing feedback and support as appropriate.
• When students have completed sharing their poems, reconvene the class.
• Return to the Model of Found and Parallel Poem and read through the two poems. Add reminders of the definition of the parallel poem form.
• Have students put one copy of their found poems away and keep out the one that they will use as they work on their parallel poems.
• Ask students to read through the found poem and identify words and phrases that provide specific information. Have students underline these content words.
• Since students will primarily be looking for nouns and verbs, provide a grammar refresher on the two parts of speech if appropriate.
• Once they have identified the content words, ask students to copy the words and phrases that are NOT underlined on to a new sheet of paper. In place of the content words, have students draw blanks, creating a template for their parallel poem in a fill-in-the-blank format.
• If resources allow, you might make additional copies of these templates for students to use. If they are working on a computer, have them print more than one copy.
• Have students choose a different topic and create a parallel poem by filling in the blanks on their templates. Allow more than one try so that students can play with words until they get poems that they like.
• For homework, ask students to prepare polished copies of both of their poems for peer review. If possible, you may ask students to provide a photocopy of the passage from the original prose text for your comparison.

Session Three

• Review the  Love Found Poems Rubric and discuss any questions students have about the expectations for the activity.
• Pass out copies of the Student Assessment Sheet for Found Poems .
• Discuss possible feedback that would be appropriate on the Assessment Sheet, pointing out the connection between the categories on the rubric .
• Arrange students in small groups, and ask them to read their poems aloud to each other one-by-one. Alternately students can work in pairs.
• Ask group members to use the Student Assessment Sheet to provide feedback on the effectiveness of one another's poems and then to share the assessments.
• As students work, circulate among class members, providing feedback and support as appropriate.
• Once everyone has finished, gather the class and generally discuss the feedback that students have received and any questions that they have about their poems.
• If desired, you might invite volunteers to share drafts with the whole class.
• In the remaining time, ask students to revise their poems, taking into account the feedback they received.
• Ask students to submit their work at the end of the session or at the beginning of the next class.
• Try the ReadWriteThink lesson Alliteration in Headline Poems for another way to create found poems.
• For additional discussion of found poems, tap the student examples in " Found and Headline Poems " from Getting the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford.
• Use this lesson as a book report alternative. Ask students to choose descriptive passages from two or three key moments in the text and then compose found and parallel poems from those passages. Add a reflective piece where students explain why they chose the passages they did.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Evaluate students’ found poems using the Love Found Poems Rubric . In your comments, draw connections to the discussion of the poem formats and the practice poems that students have written. If desired, compare your comments to those students receive on the Student Assessment Sheet for Found Poems .
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Word Mover allows children and teens to create "found poetry" by choosing from word banks and existing famous works; additionally, users can add new words to create a piece of poetry by moving/manipulating the text.

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College Minor: Everything You Need to Know

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Description

A “found poem” is a poem that was developed utilizing only words, phrases, or quotations that have been selected and rearranged from another piece of content. To create found poems, learners must choose language that is especially meaningful to them and organize the words and language around a theme. Writing found poetry is a structured way to have learners review content and aggregate their learning.

Implementation

• Learners Create a List of Words, Phrases, and Quotations: Ask learners to review a piece of content or multiple pieces of content, related to the unit of study, including work on the walls of the classroom, journal entries, primary source documents, and the content itself. As learners look over the content, have them record words, phrases, or quotations that are especially interesting. We suggest that they identify between 15 and 20 different words or phrases so that they have plenty of ideas from which to select when composing their poems.
• Learners Identify a Theme and Message: Next, learners identify a theme and message that embodies the wording they have selected. A theme is a broad concept, and a message is an idea they would like to express about this theme. Learners can trade lists and describe the themes or main ideas they see in their partner’s list.
• Learners Select Additional Language: Found poems only utilize words that have been collected from other sources. So, once learners have selected a theme and a message, they may need to review their materials again to receive additional language.
• Learners Compose a Poem: Learners are now ready to arrange the wording they have selected to create their poetry. One approach to this assignment is to have learners write all the words and phrases on slips of paper so that they can move the slips around until they are satisfied with their poems. Let learners know that they cannot add their own words when creating a found poem, but they can repeat words or phrases as often as they like. Also, when composing found poems, learners do not need to utilize all the words or phrases they have previously selected.
• Share Poems: Learners can read their poems aloud to the class. Alternatively, learners can read the poems silently. First, have learners pass their lyrics to the left once. Have learners read the poem they’ve received, write a comment, and then give the poem again to the left for another explanation. You may allow for three or four passes, or you may have time for learners to comment on all the poetry created by their classmates.
• Discuss: This activity can culminate with a conversation about what the poems reveal about the material learners have just studied. Prompts you may utilize to structure this discussion include: What strikes you about these poems? What do they have in common? How are they different? What surprised you when reading them?

Modifications

• Group Found Poetry: The instructions above assume that learners are writing their poems, but the same process can be used for small or big groups of learners who create found poems together. You can have each learner select one line for the found poem, or you can have the group determine the words and phrases that will be utilized but allow each learner to create their arrangement of this wording.
• Poets’ Statements: Composing the found poems helps learners review and synthesize what they have learned from a unit; the poem itself does not always reveal the thinking that has gone into creating this work. For that information, you can ask learners to write a statement explaining their poems. Questions learners can answer in this statement include: What is the message of your poetry? What “evidence” of your message can be found in your poetry? Why is this message important to you?
• Publish the Found Poems: Learners can publish their poetry, as a way to share their creative works.
• Organize a Poetry Reading: Another way to have learners share their poems is via a poetry reading. You can even assign this as a homework activity where the learners from other classes, parents, and instructors are invited to attend. The audience must be encouraged to ask learners questions about their poems.

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Why I Have My Students Write Found Poetry Instead of Essays

Finding words and making them yours can be poetry.

When the idea of an essay brings about groans, you know it’s time to think of something new. Enter found poetry!

What is found poetry?

Found poetry is the text equivalent of collage. Much like the artist who combines media (newspaper, feathers, images, and even sheet music) in new ways, your students can do the same by pulling words and phrases from other texts to create found poems. I have found poetry especially useful in engaging students with narrative nonfiction. 

A classroom example

In the story “Shattered Sky” , my students read about a little known disaster in Halifax Harbor in 1917, one hundred years ago. The author of the text, Kristin Lewis told the story through the voice of an 11 year-old boy. She described what he saw and heard and how it affected his family. As we read together, I asked my students to highlight words and phrases that stood out to them and text that helped them imagine being there.  One awesome thing about found poems is that they force kids to re-read with purpose.  

When we shared our poems, we discovered that even though everyone was drawing from the same text, each writer took a different perspective.  No two poems were alike.  When students write from different perspectives, they understand that writing is not about getting it right.  Writing is about expressing yourself.

One student poem

Here’s an example of how cool the found poems turned out. Madison writes a true found poem using only text she found.  The placement and design of the words on the page slow the reader down and make her poem a powerful and meaningful response to reading.  

Shattered Sky December 6th dawns, cold and clear, except for a fine, low mist that hugged the narrow harbor.

The narrow harbor that cut through two seaside towns. Halifax. Dartmouth.

Soft smoke churned, curled, and heaved from reddish brick chimneys.

Mothers served steaming, creamy bowls of porridge.

Children gather dully colored schoolbooks.

Fathers pull rough brown coats over their shoulders as they head to work.

Northern Halifax lay alive with noise and people.

Through the noise, though, a cast shadow of WWI covered newspapers, leaving innocents in peril.

Deadly and explosive, the Mont-Blanc surges through the narrows.

Another surges but cannot avoid the Mont-blanc.

They collide. Orange and blue flames ignite the sky, and the detonations ROAR to life. And… BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The Harbor lurched with explosions, turning to black and orange and blue.

Madison, 4th grade

Want to check out more student samples? Head to  Margaret’s Kidblog site.

Have you used found poetry in your classroom?   We’d love to hear about your experiences in our  WeAreTeachers Chat group  on Facebook. WeAreTeachers Chat is a place to post questions, share a laugh or an idea, and connect with new teacher friends.

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• Night Found Poem Assignment

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Instant Lesson Plan: NYT Found Poetry Contest

Laura Randazzo

• 17 Comments

Last week, I shared five easy ways to help you celebrate National Poetry Month in your classroom. Today, I’m adding a sixth solid (and free!) resource. The New York Times just launched its 8th annual Found Poetry Contest , a perfect way for us to blend high-quality informational text and creative writing.

Basically, students pick and choose wording from one article or blend words/phrases from two articles to create a Found Poem of no more than 14 lines. Curious what this looks like? Last year’s winning entries can be viewed by clicking here .

To make this work in my classroom, I’ll begin by telling my students that they have an opportunity to become internationally recognized poets by using someone else’s words. Then, I’ll follow this procedure:

1. Have students group themselves in teams of two.

2. Give them the “Amy” poem by Epiphany Jones, one of last year’s contest winners, and a copy of the articles about singer Amy Winehouse that Jones used as source material. ( The New York Times holds all rights to this work which is located here . I just re-formatted everything to save paper and make the work more usable in my classroom.)

Click here for my print-and-go version of the “Amy” poem assignment and articles.

4. Review the answers by projecting the first page of the key to allow students to self-check once the work time is finished.

Click here for the answer key.

6. Explain the contest rules, listed within the NYTimes’ Learning Network Found Poetry blog post .

Click here for a printer-friendly version of the contest rules to give to your students.

7. Finally, set students loose in the computer lab to read articles and build their Found Poem. They’ll actually “turn in” their poems by submitting them to The Learning Network blog by the May 3 deadline and then either sending me a screenshot of their entry once its posted (for security, I’ll have them submit using only their initials and the name of our town) or showing me their submission on my classroom computer during our SSR reading time on Friday.

Not only is this an easy path to get students writing for a larger audience, but it’s also a sneaky way to get them to dig into some non-fiction/informational text while sharpening those creative minds. BIG thanks to The New York Times for helping us inspire our kids!

Teach on, everyone.

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Thank you! I’m about to finish a unit now and go into some poetry – this will be a great addition to the next unit.

So glad you’ll be able to fit this in, Engaging and Effective Teaching! I’m going to use it next week with all three of my preps – 9th, 10th, and 11th. 🙂

Laura, Oh man, I fell in love with this idea!! I’m thinking since we have a short week next week and we just finished AMND that this is the perfect lesson to throw in that will still have them working. Thanks for sharing all your amazingness with us! Keep it coming, that is, if you don’t mind. ;o)

Great, Meg! I’m also thinking this will be a tool that’ll keep our kids working without them realizing they’re working. A win, right? And, yes, I’ll always keep working/thinking/searching for ways to help our teacher tribe! 🙂

Laura, I love this so much! You’ve got my wheels turning on how to use blackout poetry with other informational texts and even dense lit passages, like Shakespeare. Too much goodness! Thank you!

Thank you for the wonderful resources! They’ll be put to use in my high school creative writing class. I always look forward your posts. (Your “Tearable Puns” were a huge hit in my classroom too!)

Thanks, Annette and Reading While Eating! So glad you grabbed these goodies. 🙂

Laura…somehow I deleted your post with the poetry stations – can you resend? Thanks

Paying it forward! Was able to create this Google Presentation for the lesson for my juniors, who will be finding NYT articles related to their research topics for the poems: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PxwQFUTvrSGySZeTroxU5rMg7SRyKYNjWGoBkD76dik/edit?usp=sharing

And, modified it a bit to fit it into my Julius Caesar characterization activity. They can’t submit it to the contest, but still a fun way for them to analyze the language and characters. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wHWKah0dZgevOBfJVYz9iD355OzGCBVU70iISV9if9E/edit#slide=id.p

Laura, you are an inspiration!

Wow, oh wow, Annette! This is SO cool. Thanks for putting these slides together – a really great visual to support our instructions. Love it!

No worries, dpinokep4. Here’s the link to that stations post: https://lrandazzo.wpcomstaging.com/2015/12/26/five-ready-to-use-poetry-stations/

Love your work and your blog! Thank you for this! I was wondering, will you have it available in your Tpt store or just on this blog?

Thanks, Megan! So glad you like it. This one’s going to remain a blog exclusive, I’m thinking.

Have a great weekend, Laura

Hello, Laura, I am a little late in getting started with this assignment, but I am looking forward to having my students start this project this week. Thank you for sharing your creative ideas with us. They are helpful and fun to implement.

Oh, Michelle, you still have PLENTY of time. The NYTimes contest window doesn’t close until May 3 – still lots of time for your kids to get creative. 🙂

I just did this assignment with my sophomores, and it was a huge success! I wanted to pass on that the Amy Winehouse station on Pandora is the perfect soundtrack for this lesson. Also, for those who are focusing more on fiction, this assignment works perfectly for characterization poems or theme poems. I had sophomores work on Julius Caesar poems, and my colleague just had her juniors complete Found Poems on The Crucible. Those were scary as heck! That pointy reckoning is terrifyingly poetic : )

Great advice, Annette! I love the Pandora channel suggestion and definitely can see this working as a wrap-up for so many lit. units, too. Love your thinking! 🙂

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elie wiesel night poem

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Our Ninth Annual Found Poem Student Contest

By Katherine Schulten

• March 28, 2018

Update, Sept. 12: You can find the dates of our 2019 Found Poem Student Contest by visiting our 2018-19 Contest Calendar and scrolling down.

Update, June 11: Winners have been announced!

Every April since 2010 we’ve celebrated the joys of spring and of National Poetry Month with our Found Poem Contest.

Participating is easy: Just “find” some poetry in a Times article — any Times article, published at any point in our 167-year history.

To help, we also have a companion lesson plan by two teachers who use this contest to “reinforce close reading, experimentation, peer review, self-review and revision” — skills that are valuable across the curriclum. And, if that isn’t enough, we’ve also published an additional 22 ways to teach poetry with The New York Times .

Everything you need to know about the contest is below, with links and tips galore. But if you have any questions, please post them in the comments, and we will answer you there, or write to us at [email protected].

FAQ: Found Poem Challenge Guidelines

Q. What’s a found poem?

A. A good nutshell description would be “poems that are composed from words and phrases found in another text.” A New York Times found poem, then, uses words and phrases taken from one or more Times articles, past or present — and since the paper has been publishing since 1851, choosing which Times article(s) to use is often the hardest part.

You can mix and combine these words and phrases into a new piece, or you might simply “find” some Times writing that you think is already poetic, as Alan Feuer has done with Craigslist and its “Missed Connections” posts .

For more detail about found poetry and its history and classroom uses, we suggest an article from English Journal, “Found and Headline Poems.” (PDF)

Q. What are the guidelines for this challenge?

A. — Each poem must be 14 lines or fewer.

— You may give it your own original title if you like. The title does not count as one of the lines.

— Your sole source material must be Times pieces. You can use up to two articles.

— The poem should use no more than two of your own words. The rest of the words and phrases can be mixed up any way you like, but should all come from The Times. (You may repeat words from the articles as many times as you like.)

— You might choose to write in a traditional poetic form , or not.

— Poems may be submitted by groups or by individuals. Only one poem per person is allowed, however.

— You must be from 13 to 19 years old but can be from anywhere in the world.

— You must post your poem as a comment on this page by 7 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday, May 4.

— At the bottom of your found-poem post, please provide us with the URL(s) of the article(s) you used.

— Though The Learning Network often publishes excerpts from literary and historical works on our blog via our Text to Text and Poetry Pairing features, those are off limits for this contest. The Times articles they are paired with are, of course, fair game.

Note: Our commenting system doesn’t recognize fancy spacing, so using words to create interesting shapes is, unfortunately, not an option.

Q. What makes a great found poem?

A. Check out the work of our 2017 winners , or scroll through winning poems from previous years . As we note year after year , the poems that stand out always do two things well: They show a real love of, and care with, language, and they honor the Times source material in interesting and creative ways.

Remember that in a poem, every word, line break and mark of punctuation carries meaning, so have fun experimenting with repetition of words, alliteration, assonance or anything else that enhances what you would like to say.

This related lesson plan , written by two teachers whose students regularly submit to our contest and win, might also help.

Finally, here is an interactive tool you might use to play with the words of your poem before you submit it: ReadWriteThink’s Word Mover.

Q. How do I find a focus for my poem with the entire New York Times to choose from?

A. It’s true you can choose any Times piece ever published for this challenge, and one of our favorites the first year used an article from 1892. But the nine others we liked best that year chose much more recent work, and that’s fine, too.

Your poem can be on any topic or theme. It can be about something as broad as science in general or as specific as scientific observation of the relationship between a badger and a cow .

It can focus on something currently in the news , or you can use the Times archives to write about the past.

You can explore a trend you’ve read about in The Times, or you might simply collect words and phrases from different articles around a theme like identity, loss or joy.

Q. How and when do I post my poem?

A. Between today, March 28, and Friday, May 4, by 7 a.m. Eastern Time , post your poem as a comment on this post.

Q. How do I participate if I don’t have a digital subscription to NYTimes.com?

A. The Times’s digital subscription system gives readers free access to five articles each month. If you exceed that limit, you will be asked to become a digital subscriber.

One thing you should know, however, is that all Learning Network posts for students, as well as all Times articles linked from them, are accessible without a digital subscription. That means that if you use any of the articles we have linked to here — with the exception of our lesson plans for teachers — they will not count as part of the five-article limit.

In addition, keep in mind that you need only one great Times article to create a great found poem.

Q. I’m not an English teacher. Can this exercise help me address the standards in my subject area?

The process of creating a found poem entails closely reading sophisticated nonfiction writing in order to first identify salient words and details, then recombine those words to create something that summarizes, reacts to or comments on the topic.

So, if you’re studying climate change in your science classroom, for example, having students work with one or more articles from the related Times Topics page can be a creative way of having them “determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development and summarize the key supporting details and ideas” or “analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics.”

Creating the poem, by deciding what to say and how to say it, might then satisfy, say, the Common Core standard that asks that students “apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style.”

Every year we get many science-themed poems, on topics from the “God particle” to fruit flies, the human brain to the cosmos .

And judging by the many history-themed poems we receive every year, social studies teachers need little convincing that the contest can be a useful way to spur close reading of primary sources.

For instance, one year a winning poet used materials from 1941 and 1945 to write verse about World War II . In 2012, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we received many poems that used both historic and current Times reporting on the event .

And, of course, every year a majority of the work we get is focused on current events, on topics from politics to pop culture , so participating in the contest is a way of helping your students understand news that is important to them.

Here are some past lesson plans in which we’ve suggested found-poem exercises:

“Words of War: Comparing Veterans’ Experiences With War Poetry”

“The Dream Continued: Creating Found Poems From Martin Luther King Jr.’s New York Times Obituary”

“Campus Catastrophe: Writing Found Poetry to Respond to the Virginia Tech Tragedy”

Questions? Write to us at [email protected], or post in the comments.

The Learning Network runs contests for teenagers all year long. See our full calendar .