Valentine's Day Activities for High School ELA

February is a busy month in the ELA classroom. In February, that first unit of the second semester is finally cooking, we’ve gotten back in the swing of things after the winter break, and we’re steadily headed toward testing season and Spring Break. I used to think holiday-related lessons were a waste of time, a detractor from the business we were accomplishing, but when I started embracing things like Valentine's Day, I found that everyone was happier and enjoying themselves a little bit more.

Here’s what happened:

Every high school I've ever taught in has some kind of student council spirit week going on, candy grams, book displays in the library, etc. The rest of the school was "in the spirit" but when kids came to my room, it was business as usual.

But then we were interrupted by students delivering lollipops.

And choir kids came to serenade someone.

Kids were buzzing on sugar and little love secrets (or, more often, heartaches).

So things were NOT business as usual. Ever.

Finally, I decided to stop trying to fight it and embrace the little holiday things during the year and blend them into instruction. They became part of my backward design planning process. And what did I come up with for Valentine's day? Simple.

INTRODUCING: CHARACTER LOVE POEMS

"Celebrating" Valentine's Day gave me a creative push -- what could I do that would blend with my current unit (The Great Gatsby), be fun, still maintain some rigor, and go along with the theme?

So I put together a quick lesson on haiku. 5-7-5, baby. I grabbed some clipart hearts and printed them on different color card stock. And then came the creative writing/complex character challenge: write five haikus as if one character was writing to another. What would they say? What tone would be used? What kind of "love" do they share?

All of a sudden, I kept seeing more opportunities to take what we were already doing, flip them into something “themed” for the holiday, and shake things up in a very good way — not a distracted or oversimplified way as I had originally thought.

Once students wrote their character haikus, I had them take part in a Haiku Death Match (basically just competing with their poems with a March-Madness style bracket moving winners to new rounds). Not only did we have tons of fun, but students were practicing speaking and listening skills, they were approaching characterization with a new perspective, and we had a powerful teachable moment about tone.

Are you ready to embrace it?

If you’re someone who likes to stay in her English-teacher lane and rarely ventures out into the holiday activity arena, I totally get it. But if you’re there and looking for a way to try to branch out, this might be the perfect way to try embracing the craziness of a seemingly disruptive holiday and make the most of the sugar-rush and constant interruptions.

Tell me in the comments: where do you stand: team join-in-on-the-fun or team business-as-usual?