Teaching Students How to Write a Diamante Poem

Learning the Diamante Pattern for Poetry

Dec 16, 2008

During your unit on poetry, be sure to take the time to include the Diamante poetry pattern.

When teaching students about poetry, be sure to include the diamante pattern in your lessons. Students enjoy writing poems with this pattern, and it provides excellent opportunity to have students write poetry about various topics. This is also a great poetry pattern for teaching students specific word choice, parts of speech and descriptive language.

What is a Diamante Poem?

The Diamante poem has five lines. The first line is the subject, which can be anything from a holiday to a food, to an object. The second line contains two adjectives or words that describe the subject. The third line is three words that show action. These words usually end in "-ing". The fourth line has two words that describe the subject again, and the fifth line is a synonym for the subject. Here is an example:

Teach Students to Write a Diamante Poem

Start by making categories on the board that include sights, tastes, feelings, sounds, and smells. Explain to the students that you will be writing a diamante poem about some topic, for example, Pizza. Have the students help you fill in the categories on the board for the topic you choose. Encourage every student to participate in coming up with ideas.

Write the pattern for a diamante poem on the board, and as a class, work at filling in each line. Writing the lines for the poem directly next to each line description will help students connect the pattern to what they are supposed to write. Remind the students to use the ideas they had already come up with that are on the board.

Independent Practice with Diamante Poems

Once the students have learned how to write the poem, have them work in pairs or individually, to write their own diamante poem. If the students have trouble coming up with a topic, hold a quick brain storming session and write all the ideas that the students come up with on the board for the students to choose from to write their poem. After each student has had an opportunity to write his own poem, ask for volunteers to share the poem with the class.

The diamante pattern is a fun and easy poem to teach students how to write. If the students seem to really enjoy writing these poems, you can consider having them each write about an upcoming holiday and decorate their poem for display. This is a fun and easy way to create a bulletin board with student work.

The copyright of the article Teaching Students How to Write a Diamante Poem in Lesson Plans & Materials is owned by Jennifer Wagaman. Permission to republish Teaching Students How to Write a Diamante Poem in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.