Diamante poetry

Diamante poetry was one of the techniques suggested by Jeremy Harmer in his presentation "The Marriage of True Minds:  poetry and music in language teaching", given at the Accademia Britannica International House 50th Anniversary Educational Conference, in Rome, Oct 22/23, 2010.
Here's my first attempt (written on train on way to second day of conference).

FIRST DAY

Student

eager, open

repeating, speaking, inventing,

textbook, dictionary, computer, whiteboard,

miming, eliciting, smiling,

prepared, delighted,

Teacher.

I know - it's never going to win a competition, but the creative spark was struck, and I felt great pride in my little poem. Now imagine your students producing something similar. They have to tap into their lexis to find words they can use. You can give them the theme (Men/women, cats/dogs, summer/winter, day/night....), put on some background music (if they want it - remember to ASK. And remember, don't turn of the music before it is finished, just because you think the students SHOULD be finished!). 

He talked about many other activities you can do with poems in class. If you want to know more, comment, and I'll report, but for now I will just mention Jeremy's favourite - "YOU".

The students think of someone they love, and write that person's name at the top of the page.

Then the teacher says "Write about that person as if they were 

... a month."                 "You are April, flowers blooming, sudden showers."

...a kind of weather."    "You are a sunny day, warmth spreading."

...a kind of food."         "You are a bowl of porridge, strength to get through the day"

and so on and so on! He says that the students engage with this kind of writing, and that poetry can also be used to vastly improve students' pronunciation. I'm excited to try some of his techniques.