Grade 5 Afrikaans Poems

Creative writing can be stressful for students especially when the writing needs to be in a language other than their first language. This is why it is so important for teachers to scaffold their student's learning. It is essential that we give students the tools to be successful. Another aspect is making their work authentic by giving their work an audience. Each year my Grade 5 boys write Afrikaans poems and this year I decided that Google Classroom, Google Slides and Google Blogger gives me the ability to share these poems with an audience. 

The writing activity involves an initial lesson of reading poems written by other children and explaining the structure of the poems they are going to write. Each poem consists of 4 lines which begin in the same way:

Ek sien (I see)

Ek hoor (I hear)

Ek ruik (I smell)

Ek voel (I feel)

In the next lesson, the boys decide on a topic and write about the topic without mentioning what the topic is. I then mark the three poems and the boys decide which poem is their favourite. 

The final lesson involves Google Classroom. This is the activity I posted on Google Classroom:

You have been writing your own Afrikaans poems in class this week. Now it is time to share them! Once I have marked your three poems, you need to decide which of the three is your favourite poem. You need to learn this poem off by heart in order to present it to the rest of the class. You also need to open the shared document below and find the slide that contains your name. Please type your poem onto this slide. Once everyone has contributed to the document, I will publish it online and share it with your parents, my blog and the world. You are allowed to edit your slide any way you would like (insert pictures or photographs, change the type style, change the background, etc) but please do NOT edit anybody else's slide. I am able to track all the work that is done so I will know who has edited somebody else's slide. Have fun!

Please click on the links below to view the final products:

Ons Eie Gediggies - 5KA

Ons Eie Gediggies - 5MV

Ons Eie Gediggies - 5SO