Writing Prompt & Lesson Plan

The Persona Poem

Hi, Friend.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m serving as the artist-in-residence for the Pages program at the Wexner Center for the Arts this academic year. With the education team at the Wex, I’m working with students and teachers at five Central Ohio high schools to integrate creative writing and experiences with visual art and film into the work they’re doing. I wish I’d had a program like this when I was a teenager!

If you teach at an elementary, middle, or high school, or if you teach undergrads, you know that poetry can sometimes be a hard sell. But I don’t think it needs to be! There are some poetry prompts and exercises that work particularly well with students who may not be “sold” on poetry yet, or who are interested in reading poetry but don’t know where to begin writing it themselves. I've found that persona poems, "I am" (and/or "I am not") poems, blackout or erasure poems, centos, and love poems or invectives/"hate poems" to things other than people (to a place, a time, an object, or an abstraction like forgetting or growing up, etc.) all work well with beginning poets. And these are great prompts for any of us.

I thought I’d offer paid Dear Lifers a persona writing prompt, and also provide a full lesson plan I use when teaching the persona poem: model poems, writing exercises, partner work, and group activities. You could spend a long writing workshop moving through these various steps, or break the steps across several days and class meetings. The resources I’m sharing have worked well for me in high schools and with undergraduate students, but of course they can be adapted for younger students or more advanced writers.

Let’s dig in!