With the new school year just around the corner, teachers everywhere are thinking about what they’re going to do on the first day back. We want to make students feel welcomed, show them this is going to be a FUN year where they’ll also LEARN a ton, and do something FRESH, something they haven’t done a million times before.
It’s easy to go online and find a million icebreakers, but these have been done to death, haven’t they? One year, I had a pile of SUPER worn-out novels; these guys were way beyond their useful years. Why not do blackout poetry with the pages? I thought…
Blackout poetry, it turns out, is a pretty powerful pedagogical tool, and it’s pretty unique in the Language Arts classroom. I like it because the kids get to express themselves, they’re thinking about a text, and they are reflecting on what they’d like to put out there for others to read. It’s kind of a blend of reading, writing, and art. And that’s why it’s perfect for a first-day activity!!
If you’ve never seen or made blackout poetry before, it’s an activity that invites students to transform existing texts into their own unique artistic expressions. By selectively redacting words and phrases from a printed page, they create a new statement. Maybe it’ll be a mini-narrative; maybe it’s just a line or two, a poetic voice; maybe it’s an encouraging statement or a new image they’re creating out of the words they find on their page. This process not only fosters creativity but also cultivates essential skills in critical thinking and self-expression!
Implementing blackout poetry as a first-day activity serves multiple pedagogical objectives, establishing a strong foundation for the classroom journey ahead. First, it creates an inclusive and welcoming learning environment, where students are encouraged to find their unique voices and share their personal outlooks and stories. If we want kids to trust us and feel comfortable in our class, we need to do things that show them we care about what they have to say & want to see what they can create!
Furthermore, blackout poetry isn’t just a fun arts-and-crafts activity. It actually provides an opportunity for students to engage with texts in a fresh new way. If you watch them as they do it, you’ll see how they meticulously examine the page you’ve given them (I usually let them grab another if they don’t like the first one they get). They have to get a sense for what’s there before they can figure out what they can draw out of the words and phrases they have in front of them.
Moreover, as they get into planning which words they are going to redact, students discover that they can tease out a new message from an old one. They can see how their idea is something new, shaped by their own unique perspectives and life experiences. What do they want to say or express? And how can they do it out of what’s already there? This process builds their appreciation for what language can do and how words work to express human feelings and experiences!
Beyond its academic merits, blackout poetry also promotes social-emotional learning and self-reflection. I encourage my students to either try to make their poem send a message they want to send to other people or to create a feeling or an atmosphere for the reader. The most inspiring ones will be put up on the class bulletin board for others to enjoy throughout the first month of school! As students scribble and scratch to reveal their new poems, they inevitably touch upon their hopes, dreams, worries, and other emotionally resonant themes. Even though we only spend 20-30 minutes on this “ice breaker” activity, it helps me show them I care about their thoughts and ideas, and I want them to be creative and express themselves in my classroom!
For high-school language arts teachers, I think the beauty of blackout poetry as a first-day activity lies in its hands-on, tactile nature. Students get to physically engage with the act of reading and writing in a way that is fresh and different from what they may be expecting when they walk through your classroom door. Kids take pride in their artistic creations and love sharing these with me and with their peers. They often take photos to send to their parents, too! The excitement you can create around this activity is perfect to kick off the school year. You’ll feel like a rockstar when you see how engaged and chatty they are on a day when they are usually unsure and passive.
As language arts educators, our ultimate goal is to inspire a lifelong love for literature and written expression. Blackout poetry, with its unique blend of creativity, textual analysis, and self-expression, serves as a powerful catalyst for achieving this objective. By using poetry as a first-day activity, we set the stage for a fun, unique, and exciting school year!
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