1. Free Verse Poetry Write down whatever is in Black!
Course Target: I can writing that emphasizes various forms and figurative language.
Write down whatever is in Black!

2. What is Free Verse Poetry?
Poetry written without using strict meter, rhythm, or rhyme.
Free verse poetry is patterned by speech and images rather than by regular metrical schemes.

3. History
Free verse poetry became popular and acceptable during the 20th century, although scattered examples of the style were found before that.
Walt Whitman ( ) was the father of free verse poetry!

4. Characteristics
Punctuation may be absent or it may be used to place greater emphasis on specific words.
The main object of free verse is to use colorful words, punctuation, and word placement to convey meaning to the reader.
Free verse poetry is free from the normal rules of poetry. The poet may choose to include some rhyming words but the poem does not have to rhyme.
Some forms of free verse separate, or split, phrases and words between lines.

5. What is similar between these two poems?
Heroes May Be Boisterous, bold, brash, and loud – Yee Haw! Or swift, silent, and sly – Woosh, Or even filled with woes – Boo hoo. They may crave attention – Ta da! Or they may ask for no one to mention – Shhhh. . . Just how they made a difference.
Heroes Are sometimes courageous collaborators, sometimes originators of opportunities, sometimes champions of coincidence or circumstance. Sometimes heroes act through intelligence and at other times through ignorance.
How does the punctuation and line breaks affect how the poem is read?
How do the lines break differently?

6. Draw a tree in your notebooks.
Try This
Draw a tree in your notebooks.

7. Now try this:
Draw another tree in your notebooks. This tree must include the following:
Trunk
Leaves
Branches
Knot Hole
Bird on branches
A bug of some sort

8. Look at your trees. Some of you will notice that you do better with structure (requirements for your tree) and some of you have a more creative tree without structure. Whichever way you succeed, both ways need creativity to make it beautiful .

9. Things to think about when writing Free Verse:
Decide on how long your standard line length will be, then decide what places in your poem should have shorter or longer lines for emphasis.
You can emphasize a word by placing it the beginning or end of a line.
Remember the first & last word in a line are both important, try to vary these!
Lines are more powerful when you end with single-syllable words (usually nouns or verbs!)