Sequence of activities:

Discussion: We are officially in the October season and with that comes all the fun of storytelling of shifting seasons and all the things that creep and crawl. We are going to write a star-crossed love poem between two Halloween creatures—for instance, a vampire and a zombie. The added challenge is to do so in the sonnet form of poetry.

A sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines that has a particular structure. In the Shakespearean sonnet, the first line rhymes with the third line. The second line rhymes with the fourth line and so forth. These lines are considered the quatrain. In the quatrain, you will introduce the theme of your poem. On the eight line, you will introduce a “turning point.“ The turning point is in the build-up to the ending. The last two lines of the poem will rhyme making the ending a conclusion of the poem. These lines are considered a couplet.

Rhyme Scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

The famous example is “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare: 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (a)

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (b)

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (a)

And summer's lease hath all too short a date. (b)

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (c)

And often is his gold complexion dimmed; (d)

And every fair from fair sometime declines, (c)

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; (d)

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (e)

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, (f)

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, (e)

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. (f)

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (g)

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (g)

Here is the fun part! We get to make this new and exciting:

Step one: Pick two Halloween creatures.

Step two: Brainstorm. Jot down your thoughts on the following questions:

1. If the chosen creatures were in love, what would their love story look like?

2. Which creature would approach the other?

3. How would their unique qualities interact? (IE: If a vampire loved a zombie, how would the vampire show that in its unique way?)

4. What are the cool things about being each creature?

 Step three: Keep in mind the questions you have brainstormed and use the worksheet to complete the poem.  

Step four: Read your poem out loud, make edits if needed. Share your poem with your friends or family.