Getting students excited about writing IS still possible! Here are some great ways to get started, especially with your secondary school students:
Sparking Students’ Enthusiasm for Writing
in the Secondary Classroom—Yes, It’s Possible
Adapted from Lawrence Baines and Anthony Kunkel’s Going Bohemian: How to Teach Writing Like You Mean It (2nd ed.)
unconventional strategies
can invigorate your writing
students interested in writing.
We all know that students learn how
to write by writing—and writing
often. But how do we get students
to want to write? Bohemian writing
lessons allow you to incorporate
unconventional strategies, art and
multimedia, competitive games,
and indirect approaches in your
writing lessons so students want
to participate and you can engage
them in practice, practice, and more
Following are two lessons
that help students learn technique:
Performance Art Poetry and The
Delicate Art of Sarcasm. These
Performance Art Poetry provides
some structure for students who
otherwise might not participate
fully in writing poetry or selecting
vibrant, descriptive words.
Pen and paper, and copies of the
Hometown Instructions handout
(see p. 247). If you choose to pursue
the Enrichment activity, which is
highly recommended, then other
supplies, such as a computer, may
Begin class by asking students
informally about where they grew
up. You might want to ask for
a show of hands on how many
students were born and grew up in
flowing. Discuss good aspects and
drawbacks about where they are
Tell students that they are going
to write a poem about their
hometowns. This particular exercise
involves you offering a verbal
prompt and students responding
in writing. Before beginning
the activity, however, emphasize
that poetry should be expressive,
descriptive, and streamlined.
Encourage the use of precise,
descriptive words and discourage the
use of nondescriptive words, such as
big, the, this, it, there.
through the Hometown Instructions
handout, one line at a time, and
allow students sufficient time to
think about a response and write.
After students have completed
their initial drafts, have them go
back over their poems to identify
and replace nondescriptive words.
During the editing stage, students
may also decide to rework their
lines so that they rhyme (as in the
following student sample), but
rhyming is not necessary.
Skyscraper like missile turns
Meat with salsa on the side
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55(3)
© 2011 International Reading Association
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Sparking Students’ Enthusiasm for Writing
in the Secondary Classroom—
Yes, It’s Possible (continued)
Jackhammer overwhelms echoes,
“hail the mighty state” inside
Homeless guy holds cardboard sign,
pretend cowboy and frantic
Single mom eight months pregnant
lost, stranded ’neath the crazy
Suddenly here now suddenly gone,
graceless kiss somehow slithered
Room without windows, paralyzed
White hair, wrinkled trembling
hands, smile behind the door
Never give up, never give up
Sunburn, sweat, and tough
Goes without saying, Dallas plays
Once the poem has been written,
you may want to have students
link the words in the poem with
photographs, music, drawings, or
other sensory stimuli. Students can
compile everything into a slide
show (using PowerPoint or the free
version available through www
.openoffice.com) or film.
A 16-year-old once wrote in an
essay for class, “In high school,
sarcasm is God.” Although somewhat
overstated, the point is that sarcasm
is a currency with which adolescents
are intimately familiar. Students live
and breathe sarcasm every day, yet
most use it clumsily and ineffectively.
Sarcasm used ineffectively or with
harmful intent inevitably reflects
poorly on the speaker/writer, but
sarcasm used effectively can cause an
immediate sea change in sentiment
Print works by writers who write
with tasteful, sarcastic wit.
Have selections from a wide variety
of writers who use sarcasm, such as
P.J. O’Rourke (almost every piece of
writing), Ralph Wiley (most pieces),
Dave Eggers (some pieces), William
Buckley (some pieces), literary critic
John Simon (some pieces), and film
critic Roger Ebert (who indulges in
sarcasm infrequently, but is masterly
when he does). Comedians such as
Chris Rock, Robin Williams, and the
late Rodney Dangerfield use sarcasm
frequently, although not always in
ways that are suitable for classroom
use. Choose wisely. Sarcasm can be
a devastating rhetorical tool, but you
will not be able to teach it if you
offend half of your class in the process.
Students silently read a selection
from P.J. O’Rourke (2007) on
growing up in Toledo, Ohio. Then,
the selection is read aloud. Ask
students to identify where sarcasm
is used effectively in the piece and
underline the appropriate passages,
for example, in the first paragraph:
I grew up in Toledo, if up is the
word. Northwest Ohio is flat.
There isn’t much up. The land is
so flat that a child from Toledo
is under the impression that
the direction hills go is down.
Sledding is done from street level
into creek beds and road cuts. In
Toledo people grow out—out to
the suburbs, out to the parts of
America where the economy is
more vigorous, and, all too often,
out to a 48-inch waistband. But no
Toledoan would ever say that he or
she had “out-grown” Toledo. We
are too level-headed for that.
Explain to students that one
brand of sarcasm comes from playing
with words and twisting them to new
meanings, as O’Rourke demonstrates
later in the passage with phrases such
as “there isn’t much up” and “people
grow out—out to the suburbs...out
to a 48-inch waistband.” Perhaps the
most common use of sarcasm is in
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Sparking Students’ Enthusiasm for Writing
in the Secondary Classroom—
Yes, It’s Possible (continued)
Check out these additional resources to get your
Ann Kelly Cox, “Ekphrasis: Using Art to Inspire
Poetry,” ReadWriteThink.org
“Diamante Poems,”ReadWriteThink.org
Sheri R. Parris, Douglas Fisher, Kathy Headley,
Eds., Adolescent Literacy, Field Tested: Effective
Solutions for Every Classroom, International
Leigh Van Horn, Reading Photographs to Write
With Meaning and Purpose, Grades 4–12,
International Reading Association
connection with overgeneralization.
O’Rourke overgeneralizes in several
places later in this essay—claiming
“there is no horizon in Toledo,” that
no one ever teased a friend about his
German name (“Don Eggenschwiler”),
and that everyone in Toledo owns
“above-ground pools, riding
lawnmowers and golf clubs.” Obviously,
none of those statements are true,
but O’Rourke writes them to make
a point about the “feel” of the city.
Understatement is another
instrument in the sarcasm toolkit. In
Act 3, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s play
Romeo and Juliet, when Mercutio is
slain by Tibalt, Mercutio says, “Ay, ay, a
scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough,”
although he is mortally wounded. As
he is dying, Mercutio utters, “No,
’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide
as a church door; but ’tis enough,
’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow,
The Delicate Art of Sarcasm is
most effective when you define the
boundaries of the playing field. Fair
game are politics, current events,
popular culture, local interest, cities,
hometowns, and school policies. Off
limits are teachers, students, family,
neighborhoods, and religions. After
some discussion of the key points of
effective sarcasm, have students write
a sarcastic essay about their hometown
using the train of thought provided
by O’Rourke. The following excerpt
was written by a student from Grand
I grew up in Grand Junction,
where the desert meets the
mountains. Colorado is half
mountains; the other half consists
of roads leading to mountains.
Snow often blankets the peaks
surrounding the city, though it
rarely snows in town. The land is
so arid that most plants stay
permanently wilted all year. There
is probably some grass in Grand
Junction somewhere, though it
exists mostly in surreal patches
of green on golf courses, which
are continually irrigated, and look
conspicuously out of place. In Grand
Junction, everyone is an athlete–
golf, baseball, track, mountain
biking, hiking, skiing–though no
one makes a big deal out of it. A
resident of Grand Junction would
never say, “I am an athlete,” though
they might enter a marathon
on Friday, kayak on Saturday,
mountain bike on Sunday, and ski
on Monday. It is normal to play
around outdoors; it is weird to
The scenery of Grand Junction is
more beautiful than New Hampshire
and more exotic than Hawaii but
without the attitude or tourist
traps. After years of living in
crowded, polluted cities where the
rain never stops, newcomers to
Grand Junction may think the city
has nothing to offer and they
are right. Grand Junction has no
crowds, no pollution, and few
Baines, L., & Kunkel, A. (2010). Going bo-
hemian: How to teach writing like you mean
it (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: International
O’Rourke, P.J. (2007, April 13). Why it’s
good to come from nowhere. Toledo Free
Press. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from
pjorourkeonline.blogspot.com/2007/04/
why-itsgood-to-come-from-nowhere
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Write your poem following these guidelines:
Line 1: The place where you grew up and a verb (2 words)
Line 2: The landscape with analogy (4 words)
Line 3: The smell or taste of your hometown (6 words)
Line 4: Music, song, or sounds that remind you of your hometown (8 words)
Line 5: The kind of people who live there (10 words)
Line 6: An important event in your life (12 words)
Line 7: An important event in your life (12 words; You may repeat the above line or write a new
Line 8: A dream or nightmare (10 words)
Line 9: Physical traits of an influential person (8 words)
Line 10: The specific advice or truth someone once gave you (6 words; Perhaps you heard it
from the person mentioned above. Try to write out their advice specifically, then delete the
Line 11: Effects of the weather (4 words)
Line 12: An analogy for your hometown plus a verb and whatever else you feel like throwing in
for a last line (2–10 words)
From Going Bohemian: How to Teach Writing Like You Mean It (2nd ed.), by Lawrence Baines and Anthony Kunkel. Copyright 2010 by the
International Reading Association.
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