Take a photocopied page from an old book, a newspaper, or a printed article. Give each student a marker. Their job: black out all the words except the ones that form a poem. The remaining words are the poem.

This is reading, writing, and art in a single activity. Students have to read every word on the page to decide which ones to keep, which is more careful reading than most assignments produce. And the results are visually striking — kids want to share them, display them, and make more.