Spoken Word

I want you to do a free writing exercise—I’m going to say the word Voice and I want you to write down whatever comes to mind be it a word, a series of words, phrases or sentences. I want you to write down 8-12 different things.

Okay, now I want you to take those free random thoughts and turn them into 6 lines of poetry with the theme of Voice. It can be about your voice, things you’d like to say, your vocal quality, things you wish you could say, or it can be about the voice of someone you know well, or it can even be about what the voice you hear in your head, your thoughts that lead to your actions.

These 6 lines of poetry do not have to rhyme they can be blank verse, or for now they can even be a sentence.

Now I want you to look at the 6 lines you’ve written as well as the words or phrases you wrote in the free writing exercise and turn that into 6 lines of poetry that rhyme.

I do variations of this type of writing exercise in almost every workshop from grade 3 students to grade 12 and it always works.