Use Poetry to Teach Parts of Speech

Why not use poetry to teach parts of speech?  Many students learn best this way because verse engages them.

What follows is a creative writing teacher's model used to practice the differences between the adverb, adjective and noun clause.

God’s Rain

By Hope Ellen Rapson

When I gaze through windows on a rainy day

        which seems to fill my whole world with

                tears shed by God just for me,

                        I pray.

Where is the gray cloud of sin inside my soul

        which causes You, God, to singly send

                the pattering puddles I see?

                        I ask.

Because I question my self-centered heart

        Which often fogs or blurs heaven’s answer,

                “Only grace and mercy fall here,”

                        I trust.