Building a sonnet

Yep, I spent several hours cutting paper.

All in all, it went well. It was chaos, but slightly-organized chaos. I told my kids about raising their arms over their heads when it's time to be quiet so that I could give further instructions, and that helped a lot. It's one of those activities that works well with students of all levels. Some bright, enthusiastic kids really get into the imagery, while other students can "phone it in" without derailing the whole class.

Some advice: do this after you've done some basic voice work. It takes at least twenty minutes (minimum) to burn through the words in the envelopes, and at least another fifteen to build the sonnet. If you want any time for warm-up or reflection, make sure you have a process or routine for that kind of thing because you won't have time to introduce warm-ups on the day you build the sonnet.