In a world of uncertainty, trepidation, and fear, it seems as if everyone suffers at one time or another from worry and anxiety. Our students, unfortunately, are no different! The following poetry about anxiety is inspired by my own personal fears and worries, plaguing my own heart at various points in my life.
Keep reading for poetry activity ideas you can easily implement in your classroom!
Need help with Test Prep? Check out this FREE Pack of 3 Test Prep Activities to help students achieve success on standardized tests!
Poetry About Anxiety
WHEN I WORRY
by Kristin Menke
When I worry, I wriggle and jiggle my toes
I might start to crinkle and wrinkle my nose
When I worry, I bite my fingernails small
Or I second guess my footing and disastrously fall
When I worry, I can’t sleep a wink in the night
The very next morning I can’t stand the light
When I worry, I don’t step on cracks as I walk
Although others may sit to watch me and gawk
When I worry, I dream about things in the future
Of diseases and injuries requiring a suture
When I worry, I accomplish none of my goals
I sit there and stare at the wall full of holes
When I worry it’s hard to breathe out and breathe in
I’m sometimes lightheaded; my brain starts to spin
When I worry, my heart seems almost ready to break
As if I can’t stand making one little mistake
When I worry, I talk to others about my woes
I wish they would listen instead of trying to fix those
When I worry, I can’t think of anything else
It’s as if my thoughts are consuming themselves
When I worry, I can’t see the beauty outside
Instead, I want to run away, avoid, and hide
When I worry, I don’t see what’s real in my life
I stay stuck in the mud wallowing in my strife
When I worry, I don’t see that it doesn’t help me
Or that what I worry about will never come to be
When I worry, I can’t see how I am blessed
So now, when I worry, I focus on thankfulness
Have you thought about using fairy tales to teach the standards in a fun and effective way? Click here!
5 EASY Activities for Poetry About Anxiety
#1 Pre-Reading Activities
INTRODUCTION
Introduce and read aloud the standards you will be covering.
Explain that the focus will be on mastering the standards in the activities.
- Pre-Reading Questions/Quickwrite Ideas: What does it mean to worry? What do people worry about? What happens when people worry?
- Central Idea Introduction: You can define the term “central idea” to help your students focus on the central idea of the poem. Central Idea: what a text is mainly about, which can be supported by details throughout the text
#2 During Reading Questions
FIRST READING: Read aloud with expression.
Questions: What is the topic of the poem? What did you notice in the poem? What images stick out?
SECOND READING: During this reading, read more slowly. Tell students to write down or highlight 3 words that they find interesting.
Questions: What words did you highlight/write down? Why?
THIRD READING: After each line, stop and think aloud about the meaning of that part. Write your ideas down, modeling how to annotate for meaning with your students. As you annotate, students should be annotating their own copies.
Questions: What is the meaning of this line? Why does the poet include it? How does the line connect to the overall meaning of the poetry about anxiety?
#3 One-Sentence Summaries
One easy way to help students with their comprehension skills is to help them break up a larger text into smaller chunks. When it comes to poetry, we can focus on the stanzas!
Why not have your students write a summary for each stanza instead of a summary for the whole entire poem?
As you reread “When I Worry,” you could model how to write a one-sentence summary based on textual evidence (words, phrases, and/or lines). Simple enough and effective!
#4 Make Connections
Students can write a paragraph about a worry they consider to be overwhelming and explain it by using personal examples. They don’t have to be real or even something they currently struggle with.
I would encourage you, however, not to force students to share out when it comes to poetry about anxiety unless they are comfortable as this topic can be extremely sensitive…
Need some ideas for National Poetry Month? Click below!
#5 Write About Poetry
We all know that testing season will soon be upon us…so why not prepare our kids while they read impactful poetry about anxiety?
Everyone deals with anxiety in some way. We worry about life, death, family, friends, success, and failure. It is simply a part of life to experience anxiety at some point. And when students can write about their worries and anxieties, the process can be cathartic!
Check out this prompt!
Directions: Read the poem “When I Worry” by Kristin Menke. Identify the central idea of the poem and use at least 3 pieces of evidence from the poem to support your response.
Why read poetry about anxiety?
Well, why not?
We need the classics, for sure; however, we also need our students to connect to real life. We live in tough times, and we as teachers can help our students to understand difficult situations through reading, analyzing, and writing in response to poetry about anxiety.
Additionally, we could all use a reminder every now and then to hold back our assumptions and work to understand each other a bit better…
Can you use a POETRY ACTIVITY BUNDLE with the following poems, 2 of which include poetry about anxiety: “When I Worry,” “My Fears,” and “Unique Unicorn?” CLICK BELOW!
Need more fun lessons and activities that incorporate powerful poetry about anxiety? Check out my store Kristin Menke-Integrated ELA Test Prep!
