We made it – to day 30 – was it zig-zagging or zip-zap-zooming? I don’t know but I made it to the letter Z and the Ziggurat!
This post contains Amazon and other affiliate links, that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support. Please see the full disclosure for more information. I only recommend products I definitely would (or have already) use myself
🏛️Zip-Zap-Zooming up the Ziggurat – One Word at a Time
Poetry Form Focus: The Ziggurat
Grades: 3rd–5th
Duration: 45–60 minutes
Theme Suggestion: “Building Big Ideas” (can be adapted to topics like kindness, inventions, nature, friendship, or seasons)
Source: Playground Poetry – Invented Poetry Forms: The Ziggurat: created by Paul Szlosek
🎯 Objective
Students will explore the structure and rhyme scheme of the Ziggurat poetic form and use a scaffolded format to craft their own poem. They’ll incorporate figurative language, precise word choice, and rhyme, then reflect on how structure shapes meaning in poetry.
đź”— Connections
- Learning Connections: This lesson encourages the use of vivid language, poetic devices, and writing in response to texts and experiences. It also supports vocabulary development and word nuance recognition while tying into cross-curricular themes in history (Ancient Mesopotamia), math (patterns and structure), and art (shape-based poetry and illustration).
- Poetry Connections: The Ziggurat poem grows by stanza, building from 2-word lines to 5-word lines, each stanza maintaining its own rhyme scheme (aa, bbb, cccc, dddd). Its pyramid-like shape and title prompt offer a creative scaffold that strengthens writing stamina and appeals to both visual and verbal learners.
- Book Connections (Suggestions): For rhyme and inspiration!
- Awesome Earth: Concrete Poems Celebrate Caves, Canyons, and Other Fascinating Landforms by Joan Bransfield Graham and illustrated by Tania Garcia – shape poems to do with landforms and structures!
- Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale – real architecture + poetry
- The Llama Who Had No Pajama: 100 Favorite Poems by Mary Ann Hoberman – short, catchy, and often humorous poems
- Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young selected by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Marc Brown – Short, rhythmic poems ideal for use to inspire here
- Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman – fun, rhythmic poem with some building up of its own!
🪜 Step-by-Step Breakdown
1. Warm-Up (5–10 min)
- Show a simple drawing of a ziggurat (step pyramid)
- Ask: “What happens when you build something piece by piece?”
- Show the structure of the poem
- Brainstorm rhyming sets as a class for practice (e.g., “cat, hat, bat”)
Structure: A Ziggurat poem is a pyramid-shaped poem with stanzas that grow bigger step by step. Each stanza has more lines and more words per line, and each stanza has a different ending rhyme for all its lines.
- Stanza 1: 2 lines of 2 words (aa rhyme)
- Stanza 2: 3 lines of 3 words (bbb rhyme)
- Stanza 3: 4 lines of 4 words (cccc rhyme)
- Stanza 4: 5 lines of 5 words (dddd rhyme)
- Title: Must be one word that reflects the poem’s theme (or actually the first stanza – 1 line of 1 word!)
2. Teach (10–15 min)
- Break down the structure on an anchor chart or whiteboard
- Use color-coding to show stanza groupings and rhyming lines
- Show a sample Ziggurat poem
- Read it out loud
- Point out the growing lines and matching rhymes within stanzas
🌼 Spring
Breeze blows
Green grows
Birds start singing
Raindrops are pinging
Nature is springing
Flowers are blooming bright
Days are growing light
Colors everywhere in sight
Hearts feel all right
We play outside all day
Jump, laugh, run and stay.
Everywhere joy makes its way
Happy moments come to stay
Spring’s here—hip hip hooray!
~ Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites
3. Model (5–10 min)
- Co-write the beginning of a Ziggurat poem using a shared topic
- Let students offer ideas for each line length (2-word line → 3-word lines, etc.)
- Title: Pick a strong single word (e.g., “Friendship,” “Storm,” “Growth”)
- For example: below is the start for a ziggurat with the title Basketball.
🏀 Basketball
Bounce, pass,
Quick dash
Shoes squeak loud
Hands reach high
Ball goes in
4. Write (15–20 min)
- Students choose a topic and begin writing their own Ziggurat poem
- Provide scaffold sheets with the stanza layout and line count guides
- Circulate to offer rhyme support or word banks as needed
5. Share & Reflect (5–10 min)
- Students share poems with peers in small groups or aloud
- Discuss: “How did the shape of the poem influence what you wrote?”
- Optional: Illustrate the poem as a literal ziggurat shape
♿ Accommodations & Adjustments
For Lower Grades (1st–2nd):
- Focus on shorter stanzas only (e.g., stop at 3 or 4-word lines)
- Use shared rhyming banks or sentence starters
- Allow drawing before writing to build ideas
For Upper Grades (6th–8th):
- Challenge: Use more complex rhymes or thematic imagery
- While the original invented form stops at 4 stanzas (with 5 lines of 5 words each), students could attempt a couple more maybe – 6 stanzas (so two more, continuing the pattern..)
- Try reversing the Ziggurat (descending word counts) or building two mirrored ones
- Require poetic devices: alliteration, metaphor, simile
🚀 Extension Activities
- Art Connection: Design a poem page with a ziggurat shape
- History Connection: Research real ziggurats and write a poem inspired by one
- Technology: Type poems into a shape generator (e.g., concrete poem builder)
- Buddy Activity: Partner younger and older students to build a poem together, stanza by stanza
- Performance: Host a “Step-Up Poetry Slam” where each stanza is read by a different group
Zooming Down Memory Lane and Back Again
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt challenges us to write a poem that describes different times in which we’ve heard the same band or piece of music across our lifetime.
My poem traces one song through my life: first, when my younger brother would sing it (with made up lyrics, of course – for I think he was all of 5!), then through endless cassette plays on our old stereo, my dad sang it many times too, and now I have the memories of dad’s voice when I listen to it. Now, decades later, I blast it on road trips—to my kids’ annoyance and my own quiet joy.
For those you are wondering: the song is an old Bollywood song: Mere Jeevan Saathi, Pyar Kiye Jaa (video embedded below). One cool fact about this song, it is kind of a cento – for it uses other Bollywood movie titles as its lyrics. And I used the ziggurat form again here – seemed to work.
So here is
My Attempt at
Playback
Tiny performer,
Lyrics deformer.
Those golden days –
faithful stereo plays,
in memory’s haze.
Dad lent his voice,
Melodious, far from noise.
Glad I’ve this choice
of memories to rejoice!
Burned the original on CD,
For road trips, you see.
“Again, mom?” they sigh, plea,
roll eyes in fake misery,
as the song loops eternally!
~ Vidya Tiru
And Now, the End of This Post
Let me know in the comments!
And any other comments and thoughts on my post are welcome as always.
I am linking up to A-Z, Blogchatter, UBC, NaPoWriMo.
And you can find all my A-Z posts (this year and previous years’ as well) here:
