Senses Activities for the Poetry Lesson
A Five Senses Lesson Plan to Merge With Poetry Ideas
Feb 2, 2009
Class exercises dealing with the humans senses usually have a scientific/ biological orientation. However, poetry – indeed, all creative writing – depends on the writer being able to convey impressions of his or her world through the senses.
It is useful, therefore, to prime young writers to fully utilise this skill in their writing by making them more aware of their five senses. The following lesson can be used with upper primary school or high school students. Even adult creative writing students benefit from the exercise.
Lesson to Heighten the Senses
The component exercises can be conducted in one long period, or spread across several.
Touch Experience Exercise
Students work in pairs, one blindfolded, and the other not. (This can also be an exercise in trust!) The "sighted" student guides and protects the blindfolded partner.
The blindfolded student is led to another blindfolded student (blindfold also serves to protect the eyes from stray fingers) and each, in silence, is required to feel the other's face and hair and try to guess who it is. Feeling another person’s face is quite an odd experience, so expect some ‘Yuck!’ and ‘Erk’ comments.
The blindfolded student is led along a table where a variety of items have been placed inside boxes. The student is required to remain silent so that students following aren’t alerted to what is coming. The teacher should guarantee a variety of tactile sensations using tapioca in a bowl, jelly, fur, marbles, sandpaper, a silk handkerchief – whatever the teacher can find.
Pairs then reverse and carry out the exercise again. The teacher will need a different set of items for the second group.
A similar exercise can be to arrange a series of familiar items along a table and allow students to guess what they are. Students can volunteer what "gave it away".
Students write or respond orally to questions about how the blindfold heightened their awareness, what they didn’t like and what they enjoyed.
Smell Experience Exercise
This exercise is set up and conducted much like the previous one, except students are presented with a range of bottles or jars to smell. Teacher must ensure that all products are harmless, as student stupidity has to be factored in.
Items could include a rose (one with perfume!), a sliced apple, an orange, vinegar, soap, tomato sauce, a pizza slice, a sneaker, and perhaps something like a glass of water without smell to see if students assign a smell.
Again, if students are to work in pairs, teacher will need a double issue of items.
Students can be asked if there were any surprises. Were there smells they would normally like but didn’t recognise without sight?
Taste Experience Exercise
This is identical to the last exercise, except that a range of harmless products (foods) are available for blindfold sampling. Allergies must be taken into consideration. Students must identify the fruits or foods they are given. Does the element of fear (because they’ll all be certain they’ll be given something horrid) heighten the sensation?
A blindfold ‘taste test’ on several brands of the same product can be carried out and a vote taken on Brand 1, Brand 2 and Brand 3. Did students identify the brand they would normally favour?
Hearing Experience Exercise
All students are blindfolded and must listen to the sounds around them. How many do they normally "fade out"? At the end of a 1 minute period, students remove the blindfold and write a list of all the sounds they can remember hearing. Perhaps a small prize for the longest (verified) list.
Teacher records 6 "secret sounds" – normal sounds made close to a microphone. Students have to guess what they are. To ensure that all participate, or get a chance to participate, do not allow calling out. Answers must be written at the end of the exercise.
Sight Experience Exercise
Students are encouraged to hold a variety of everyday items at angles they would not normally see them: a computer mouse nose on, a knife end on, classroom chairs and tables from floor height (Beware: no up-skirt opportunities!).
Students might then try to sketch this new perception of these objects.
Students are asked to look at the world through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, or with one eye only and through a long cardboard tube.
Observation Exercise
Without preamble, students are shown three detailed scenes for 5 seconds each – from book held up, using overhead projector, or on a computer screens.
Students are then required to write answers about what they observed – for example:
- What colour shirt was the boy wearing?
- What was the name of the shop in the background?
- How many men were sitting at the table?
- What jewellery are the women wearing?
Now that students are aware that their observation skills will be tested, run the test again with 3 different scenes.
Have students assess whether they did better when they knew they were required to observe.
Value of Lesson in Awareness of Senses
Although the classroom exercises above are simple and good fun for students of all ages, they do give participants a greater awareness of their senses and sensations. They are valuable for anyone who needs help writing a novel.
The lesson could be followed by a poetry lesson in which students can read a wide range of lines that call on a response from the senses, taken from a variety of poems. Students can identify which lines tap into their experiences and help them share the poet’s experience. They could also try a "Come to your Senses" poetry writing exercise.
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