Printable Renga links worksheet for Years 9–10
The opening stanza has three lines (about 5-7-5 syllables); each answering stanza has two lines of seven. Each stanza answers only the one before it, then the chain moves on.
Renga is linked verse written by more than one person. An opening stanza of three lines (about five, seven and five syllables) is answered by a stanza of two seven-syllable lines, which is answered in turn, each new stanza responding only to the one immediately before it — never to the whole poem, never to the original subject. That single rule creates the form's beautiful drift: a chain that starts with this morning's weather may end three links later at the sea, and every step still makes local sense. In a classroom, renga is the rare collaborative form where nobody can dominate, because each writer owns exactly one link and must let go. Run it on paper passed around a table, folded so each writer sees only the last stanza. Reading the finished chain aloud is the lesson: the class hears coherence and surprise produced by the same mechanism. Set one constraint per round — this link must include a sound; this one must change the season. The final discussion question never fails: where did the poem go, and who took it there? Nobody did, and everybody did.
Teaching this at Years 9–10
What changes at this level: Sixteen writing lines, full-class chain of eight or more links, constraints rotate per link (sound, season, scale, question, silence). Closing artist's note per writer on their handover.
Years 9–10 can treat renga as a study in influence: each link is visibly caused by the previous one and visibly constrains the next, which is a working model of literary tradition they have physically made. The per-link artist's note ('I took X from the stanza above and turned it toward Y') is assessable evidence of intertextual thinking, and the finished chain anchors any later discussion of allusion.
Worked example: Chain of four links
rain on the awning —
the market opens slowly,
gulls argue over chips
salt on the wind, and somewhere
a radio learns the news
static, then a love song —
the bus exhales at the kerb,
nobody gets off
streetlights in puddles,
the whole town, doubled
Each stanza answers only its predecessor: weather → harbour sounds → radio → street. Ask students to find the exact word in each link that hands over to the next — that handover word is the entire craft of the form.
What a worksheet looks like
Theme drawn for this sample: machines. 16 writing lines. Tasks, in the order this sample drew them:
- Read the chain aloud: it should wander and still hold together.
- Answer your partner's stanza, not their subject.
- Write an opening stanza about the weather right now.
Your download draws a new theme and task order, so no two students need get the same sheet.
Make your Renga links worksheet All Renga links levels
Other levels and forms
- Renga links worksheet for Years 5–6
- Renga links worksheet for Years 7–8
- Printable Acrostic worksheet for Years 9–10
- Printable Blackout poem worksheet for Years 9–10
- Printable Haiku sequence worksheet for Years 9–10
- Printable Found poem worksheet for Years 9–10
Teachers: the classroom packs collect ready-to-print forms, and the Builder makes class sets of 5–30 different sheets as one download.