Teaching Poetry

my son's teacher inundated the kids with work from various poets, demonstrating different styles. there's the obvious ones, Suess, Silverstein, Robert Luis Stevenson, all with distinct styles. she would have a mini unit on each style with the kids writing their own work in that style.
Scholastic has a decent resource for this type of thing as well here.
you can't give the kids prompts? do you mean specific, like you can't say "ok today we're gonna write a poem about elephants" ? can you at least prompt with a specific style, like say..haiku, or free style, or silly, or serious..etc. something that mimics the style of poetry you read for them that day, and have them write their own. giving them more than one example of a style would encourage their own individuality, rather thana directly prompting them.

kmm8n said:

Hi Everyone,
I am starting a unit on poetry with my second grade class. Poetry is not an area I'm comfortable with, so I would appreciate any assistance y'all could give me.

If you have any ideas for teaching the elements of poetry or good examples for children, it would make my life easier!!

We will be doing poetry for the next two months and I plan to do several "publications," for example a class anthology, a picture book poem, and an individual anthology.

I'm not supposed to give the kids prompts and I want to avoid having every poem rhyme.

Any suggestions?

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It's wonderful to see that you will be creating publications for the kids to keep as momentos. I hope you get a lot of helpful advice here. I was actually asked to teach poetry to children at an upcoming summer writing camp for kids. I'm wavering, as I myself have never studied poetry in any form...other than the basics back in high school...and I completely forget everything I learned back then. I hope you don't mind...I'm going to be peeking at the advice you're given here.

It's interesting that you said you are not supposed to give the kids prompts. If you wish them to write poetry without rhyme...maybe it would be a good idea to read some. But I would suggest not inundating them with readings. Maybe people here will suggest some real zingers that kids would relate to and be happy to listen to.

Good luck with your teachings. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun!

I think the elements of poetry would not be good. If you don't have some goal that your superiors expect you to reach, start this way:

Tell them to write nonsense, then ask them if they see anything in the nonsense that makes the nonsense sound sensible.

Hello and welcome,

I was a preschool/kindergarten readiness teacher for 11 years and I would like to offer some ideas. Good or bad, you pick if any seem to work for you.

Personally, working with young children (your group is between 6 and 8?), there is a wide spectrum of understanding and abilities. I had a 4 year old reading and journaling on the third grade level and some that were autistic, an almost impossible gulf to bridge.

I am a concept person, especially working with children. Concrete vs. abstract is always a good basis, so nouns would be the emphasis, I would think. I would do several kinestic oriented projects first, adopting a interdisaplenary approach.

This is a teaching philosophy/practice, I can only recall that it is referred to as Project Construct, that the instructor adopts a facilitory role as the children self explore. I would start with magazines and give the children opportunities to explore graphically whatever concepts they choose by tearing/cutting images. Another take on this, (if feasible for your families economically) is for each child to have a disposable camera and go on a field trip for the specific purpose of capturing images that will be worked in and explored within the childrens' poetry. Walmart, is very good about supporting school projects and might opt to donate the cost a cameras and developing, it's worth asking as they have been known to do stuff like that in my region.

As the children explore concepts/images, using a scaffolding approach, adjectives could be explored tactily. Verbs could be a set of physical exercises outdoors/indoors, with equipment/music, etc. After a session of exploration, have the children record, in some fashion, those experiences. With childrens' reading/writing skills being so varied, some children might have the oportunity to use a hand held recorder to speak of their experiences. After the children have opportunities to collect concepts/experiences in various ways, don't forget painting/clay etc, have them work with those collections to transmit them into their poems. Some may choose to write, some may choose to cut words out of magazines and assemle them. Some might use only a verbal recording.

You can have sessions where, as a group, children share what are some of their stand alone words as they build their word pools. There could be a public display of words that are being collected. For me, working in early childhood, the process was the emphasis and the product was secondary. Working with a young age group, it was foundational that the children first pick up the "how to" and then move to quality of production as they matured in their understanding. I would refrain from competitions and rewards for accomplishment. Let the children find their own voice.

I think with this older age group, you might find some good information in using art as therapy. Often young children are expressing something that adults "don't get". Regardless of what they express through this experience, their voice needs to be encouraged more than stricter codes of poetry. Children get to be children so little time in this life, the rules will be in their face the rest of their life.

Hope something in this mess makes sense. I envy you, working with children and getting into their world is one of the most incredible experiences an adult can have.

kid