Quatrain Poetry – Posters + Graphic Organizers

About this resource

What's inside this resource

This resource is a set of learning posters and graphic organizers for quatrain poetry writing.

There are a variety of posters that teach about quatrain poetry. Students will explore features, how to write a quatrain poem and so much more.

They will use the graphic organizers to brainstorm ideas and then write a quatrain poem.

This pairs well with your poetry unit in English class. You may also love to print these off and use in a center activity.

This resource can be accessed through:

PowerPoint

Google slides

PDF

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Name the four rhyme patterns a quatrain can follow — ABAB, AABA, AABB and ABCB
Read the letters beside a set of poem lines and say which lines have to rhyme with each other
Write an original four-line poem that keeps to an assigned rhyme scheme
Choose a rhyme scheme independently and write to it on the unlettered organizers

Teaching tips

Show the poster page before handing out any organizer — every lettered organizer assumes students already know what the A, B and C markings beside the lines stand for.
Begin with the AABB organizer, where the rhyming lines sit next to each other, before moving to ABAB, where a rhyme has to be held across an intervening line.
Keep the two unlettered organizers for a second sitting: students pick one of the four patterns themselves and write the letters in before drafting.
Print the PDF for hand-drafting and open the PowerPoint file when students are typing or when the poster is being projected for the whole class.

Skills covered

Rhyme scheme recognition — students read the ABAB, AABA, AABB and ABCB headings on the poster and match each label to the example poem printed beneath it.
Quatrain composition — students draft an original four-line poem on an organizer whose left-margin letters set the rhyme pattern the poem must follow.
Rhyming word generation — filling an AABB or ABAB frame requires students to find word pairs that rhyme at the ends of specified lines.
Independent poem planning — the two unlettered organizers ask students to settle on a pattern of their own before they start writing.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What do the letters printed beside the writing lines stand for?

They mark the rhyme scheme: lines sharing a letter rhyme with each other. On an A/B/A/B organizer the first and third lines rhyme and the second and fourth rhyme; on an A/B/C/B organizer only the second and fourth lines rhyme.

Is every pattern shown on the poster also available as an organizer?

Yes. Across the ten organizers, ABAB, AABB, AABA and ABCB each appear at least once, and two organizers carry plain unlettered lines for students who want to pick their own pattern.

How much writing does one organizer ask a student for?

A title and four lines of poem. Each organizer has a short ruled line across the top for the poem's title, four full-width lines for the quatrain itself, and a Name line at the foot of the sheet.