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ELA 4: Acrostics 53 Views


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Description:

Acrostics are kind of like crossword puzzles mixed with poems. They're pretty much a literature geek's dream come true. 

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

[Coop and Dino singing]

00:13

When you first started learning about poetry, did you have any idea there would be so many [Girl standing at the front of a class teaching poetry]

00:18

different kinds of poems?

00:19

And not just any poems…poems with rules and structures, that make the whole thing

00:23

kind of feel like a math equation.

00:25

Are you just plain sick of it? [Boy in bed with a thermometer in his mouth]

00:27

Well, that's too bad, because here's another one!

00:29

But never fear!

00:30

This one is pretty fun.

00:31

Well… [Poems skydiving]

00:32

We think all poems are fun.

00:33

To each his own.

00:35

Acrostic poems are just what they sound like – poems that go "across."

00:40

And that’s about all there is to it.

00:41

Have fun!

00:44

Whoops…

00:45

We forgot to do the explaining part, didn’t we? [Girl explaining acrostic poems]

00:47

All right, here goes.

00:49

An acrostic poem means a poem that takes one word and then uses each of the letters in

00:53

that word to spell out other words, so that the poem ends up looking sort of like a crossword [Coop teaching acrostic poem rules]

00:58

puzzle.

00:59

In case you can’t envision that perfectly in your head, let's check out an example.

01:02

How about we write an acrostic poem using the word “acrostic”?

01:06

First, we have to come up with a word that relates to the word “acrostic” and starts

01:10

with the first letter, A.

01:11

Since we think acrostic poems are amazing, let's use that. [Girl with thumbs up writing acrostic poem]

01:15

The words you choose can be words that remind you of the first word, or words that describe

01:18

how it makes you feel, or pretty much anything.

01:21

Come up with a word for each letter of your starting word, and you get something that

01:25

looks like this.

01:26

Acrostic: Amazing, Cool, Radical, Outstanding, Silly, Tricky, Imaginative, Clever.

01:33

Pretty neat, huh?

01:34

Of course, you don't have to always make each letter the first letter of your new words.

01:38

You can arrange your acrostic poem however you please, so that it uses whichever letters [Acrostic poem rearranged]

01:42

you want.

01:43

And if you're feeling extra-confident, you could even try to tell a story with it, like

01:47

this one about a vampire.

01:49

Even vampires make apple pie for dessert.

01:51

See how each word intersects with our main word, VAMPIRE, in different ways? [Vampire acrostic poem in a book]

01:55

You can do that, too, if you'd like.

01:57

The best part about acrostic poems is that they work with any word in the world. [Poems shaking hands with the Earth]

02:01

Seriously, scientists have yet to find a single word that can’t be acrosticized.

02:05

So give it a shot!

02:07

And if you’re suffering from a little writers’ block, technically, this counts: [A boy in class moving a writing block]

02:10

School School School School School School.

02:12

Though your teacher probably won’t like it very much. [Boy hands teacher acrostic poem]

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