Spooky Poetry Fun in Eighth Grade

Dr. Angello’s eighth grade English classes recently visited the Hess Library for a Haunted Book Crawl and Blackout POEtry lesson. Mrs. Giroud spooked up the Ohana Room with bubbling cauldrons, spider webs, and a huge variety of books designed to get students in the mood for Halloween!

The kids chose new books for independent reading (IR) while listening to Christopher Lee recite Edgar Allen Poe’s terrifying classic, “The Raven.” Then, they watched The Simpsons perform the same, before Mrs. Giroud launched a mini-lesson about blackout poetry.

With this found poem technique, writers use existing texts (like books or newspaper articles) and redact or cover all but a few words, thus creating a new poem. Mrs. Giroud inspired the Chargers with several different Poe stories and poems, then invited students to choose their favorite and black it out to create their own POEtry.

Thanks, Mrs. Giroud, for a spooktastic day!

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