Looking for a fun and interactive way to teach or review poetry? A FlipHunt just might be the answer. As a former ELA teacher and current librarian, I have a soft spot in my heart for poetry. What better way to get your students excited about poetry than with an engaging gamified contest? I had been searching for how I could help all students engage positively with poetry. I wanted to find a way that allowed for more student agency and personalized learning experiences. That was when I came across #fliphunt on Twitter. Kathi Kersznowski had a great resource that got me thinking about how I could recharge my poetry unit.
Planning a FlipHunt
A FlipHunt is a scavenger hunt using Microsoft Flip to record responses. This would be a great activity for in-person and virtual school settings. I’ll walk you through the planning process for my first FlipHunt.
I started by thinking about my goals. What did I want my students to walk away with a better understanding of? Then, I wanted to ensure my students had choices and opportunities to be creative. I also thought about the structure. Did I want students to work independently or in pairs/groups?
Then I generated my plan:
- Goals– my students will…
- Find poetry enjoyable and relatable
- Practice constructing poetry
- Make connections
- Analyze theme
- Creatively respond to poems
- Student choice– my lesson will…
- Include a variety of tasks students can choose from
- Allow students to select poems of interest to analyze
- Allow students to choose the order to complete activities
- Structure– my lesson will…
- Gamify the activity with point values
- Allow independent or small-group participation
- Engage students through choice
- Include a link to my Flipgrid project where students can respond to the tasks by class period
Results of the Activity
Unveiling my first FlipHunt with students was a great opportunity to collaborate with ELA teachers and bring in their students. It was exciting to see students having fun working on the FlipHunt and getting them excited about poetry. Students loved getting to choose the poems they would respond to. From a management standpoint, having all their Flipgrid responses organized in my teacher dashboard on Flipgrid also made it easy to track student participation. Check out one of our #BookSpinePoetry submissions below.
Poetry Fliphunt Template
Want to try it out yourself? Take this template and customize it to meet your needs. And if you’re interested in learning more, check out this related blog post from TCEA.
More Poetry Blogs
Four Ways AI Can Help Teach Poetry
Celebrating National Poetry Month
Creating Dynamic Digital Poetry Books
Three Tools for Your Poetry Slam
