How Do We Inspire Poetry

by Kathleen Whitman Plucker

Poetry Links How Do We Inspire Poetry Could I REALLY Be a Poet Someday? More Than Fluff Literacy Through Poetry in Primary Grades White Knuckles A Poetry Connection Framed & Hung: a Poem genre description poetry prompts tech tips for poetry

When students write poetry they gain skills that benefit them for life. By writing poems, students learn how to tap into their feelings, as well as their five senses. Students challenged to write a highly-constrained form, such as haiku, practice expressing themselves concretely and concisely. Once exposed to their peers’ work, kids are reminded that others feel and experience many of the same things they do.

Unfortunately, students often mistakenly equate poetry with rhyme. Reinforcing that notion – and making students overly aware of their punctuation and penmanship as they write – can quash young authors’ creativity. Concerns about punctuation, spelling and handwriting should be saved for final drafts. Inspiring great work is relatively easy. Students must believe that their writing will be respected, criticized constructively, and praised appropriately. Because kids enjoy seeing their byline, publishing their work brings out their best efforts. Some teachers enjoy creating a class anthology that includes at least one poem by each student and is available for checkout at the school library. Other teachers may publish poems in less traditional ways, such as on classroom bulletin boards or in hallway display spaces. There are also web sites that provide opportunities for electronic forms of publishing young poets’ works. In all cases, students should be encouraged to read their peers’ writing.

Teachers typically take one of two approaches when challenging young people to write poetry. Some teachers prefer to focus on themes – such as colors, seasons, weather, and people – and introduce poetry forms as students write on these themes. Other teachers emphasize the forms themselves: metaphor, simile, couplet, tercet, quatrain, cinquain, haiku, limerick, ballad, etc. Either approach works if students are motivated to write.

Several exercises that stimulate creativity, and can be adapted for all age groups, follow:

1. Choose a word that resonates with students, such as fire, snow, summer, water, or Saturday. With the class, brainstorm words and phrases describing how this word smells, feels, tastes, sounds, and looks. As you record responses on the chalkboard, get students to move beyond the obvious. Then, either as a class or individually, write a poem using words and phrases from the board. (Consider inviting a second class to write a poem using this same word list.)
2. Start each poem-writing session with a brainstorming activity. Always relate the brainstorming session to their ultimate task. If you want students to write a poem about city life, spend time helping them think about shapes found in the city; things a building might see on a typical day; what a sidewalk feels; the stories a building could tell.
3. Invite students to personify something, such as a number, letter, fruit, or vegetable. Have the item on hand so students can interact with it while they write.
4. Fill a Mystery Box with slips of paper, each containing a word or phrase. (You can even include made-up names.) Ask each student to select a paper and write a poem about the word or phrase they have chosen. (Older students can use the word in their poem or as its title.)
5. Challenge students to make the ordinary extraordinary. Wrap everyday objects in tissue paper, and then ask each student to pick an item. After students have unwrapped their items, allow them to trade. Charge them with writing a poem about what they have.
6. During a class walk, ask each student to pick up one item. When students return to the classroom, have them write about what they found.
7. Ask students to write about the immediate. If it is storming, have them write about rain. If students are writing about trees, let them sit among some.
8. Invite students to write about something they miss or crave. In winter, have them write about summer.
9. Give each student a person’s picture (cut from a magazine). Challenge the students to write about the people, whom they can even pretend to be.
10. Encourage students to start a poem with a question they then answer. (As a rule, discourage students from opening with "the" – it’s clunky.)
11. Challenge students to incorporate parody into their poetry by rewriting common nursery rhymes.

One of the most important actions is to expose kids to poetry written by others. Include a poetry pause often in schoolday activities, when students listen to, read or act out a poem. Poems written by children can be found in I Am a Pencil by Sam Swope and A Celebration of Bees by Barbara Juster Esbensen.

Sources:

Esbensen, Barbara Juster.

A Celebration of Bees: Helping Children to Write Poetry. Henry Holt and Company: NewYork. 1995.

Hopkins, Lee Bennett.

Pass the Poetry, Please! HarperCollins Publishers: New York. 1998.

Kaye, Peggy.

Games for Writing: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Learn to Write. Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York. 1995.

McKim, Elizabeth & Judith W. Steinbergh.

Beyond Words: Writing Poems with Children. Talking Stone Press: Brookline, MA. 1999.

Potts, Cheryl.

Poetry Fun by the Ton with Jack Prelutsky. Alleyside Press: Fort Atkinson, WI. 1995.

Kathleen Whitman Plucker

Kathleen Whitman Plucker is a freelance writer living in Bloomington, Indiana. Her work has most recently appeared in Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul II, Ladybug magazine, and the Herald-Times newspaper. Kathleen can be contacted at kplucker@earthlink.net.

This featured article appeared in Volume 1, Number 3 issue of the Write Connections quarterly newsletter. View other archived newsletters , a topical organization of all newsletters, or sign-up to receive notification when the next newsletters are ready to download.