The Power of Poetry

Anyone can be a poet; they just don’t know it! Terrible, but it’s a start. And that to me is what poetry is about – just giving it a go. Writing good poetry is hard. It involves cutting and shaping and saying goodbye to some great words. You have so much to think about! In this blog, we will look at teaching poetry and how we can make it fun and approachable for ourselves and our pupils.

Singing Songs of Sixpence

Lyrics are poetry set to music and can be a great way to approach reading poems. Songs have strong structures, usually rhyme and can have layers of meaning or tell a story. Within a song, you have access to the idea of imagery, narrative and structures like rhyming couplets. There are the rhythms you can count and the strong sense of overall journey and structure in verses. Poetry and songs share so much and there is a song for all occasions. When I did a space topic, we looked at Bowie’s Space Oddity. I started by introducing the song as a poem, without the music and you could see the repetition, the narrative, the tragedy of it straight away. The music was then the icing on the cake that helped us turn it into a performance at our end of year assembly. No matter the age, singing rhyming songs is foundational in primary schools and helps lay a strong sense of what a poem is from the beginning, one we can continue to cash in on as pupils move through school.

Finding Favourites

At my school, we make a point of having poetry in each classroom library area and each half term we choose a new poem to study. Teachers can pick their own poem or poet to look at. Exposing pupils to poetry helps them build ideas about what they like, what makes them think or laugh or want to read more. Poetry can give insights into different cultures, places, times and experiences. Occasionally, we ask all pupils to pick a poetry book for their library choice and then give them time to share what they have enjoyed. I might also put a selection of poetry books on desks when pupils come in from lunch and ask them to read for ten minutes, then share and explore.

Another engaging way to introduce poetry to pupils is with videos – CGP+ has a range of these, where poems are read aloud and analysed. You could check out the videos on older classics like Monday’s Child, or newer ones like The Garden Gang.
 

Rules and Types

Some pupils love the idea that poems have rules. The haiku, the limerick and the cinquain have rules and structures that pupils can hang their ideas on. Poetry like this is also short and so every word must have thought behind it. It can lead to a broadening of vocabulary as children search for that perfect word with just the right number of syllables. Sometimes, a reluctant writer can be one of the best poets because the shortness is what makes it so sweet and approachable. Poems can be little adventures with words full of hidden depth. For a little guidance writing these poems, try this resource on haikus, this PowerPoint on limericks or, for a Father’s Day activity, this worksheet on cinquain poetry.

Poems that are short lend themselves to oracy work – poems can be written to be performed for specific events and audiences, with the possibility of adding sound, props and actions. Poetry is a gift for oracy and the dramatic. Check out this list of oracy resources on CGP+ for a closer look at how poetry can help with this topic.
 

Pruning and Perfecting

As I said at the start, poetry involves a lot of brave cutting and shaping. A fun way to write poetry is to do it live. Start with the idea, the title or the theme and write with the pupils chipping in as they write ideas on whiteboards. Tell them you want a line about a tree. The tree is out in the cold and feeling alone. The line needs ten syllables and this poem will have rhyming couplets, so we need a final word that is adaptable. The whole poem might be about seasons, the life of the tree or the people who sit under it over the year. Once you get started on one line, you have structure, rules and some emotional depth that will grow the poem into the right shape. Then you prune ideas together, expressing your opinions, cutting as you go. Once you have shown how the poem can be written, you can ask pupils to continue in groups and to use different coloured pens to show how they edited the poem. Pupils can call on each other for that perfect word, for rhymes or the correct number of syllables.

Themes and Dreams

It doesn’t have to rhyme every time. That’s something to be relieved about. Young poetry writers can grab at rhyme and pick a jarring word that ruins everything. Free verse can still have structure, using repetition or syllable counts. You could ask pupils to give each verse a theme, which is great for encouraging thematic paragraphs in their other narratives. Poems can be abstract, dreamscapes, or depictions of real events. One way to generate a poem is to take a book that is entirely pictures. You could focus on one page or one object. What is the object, what is it doing, how is it doing this, how does it feel? When you string together these ideas, you have a line of poetry.

A Poetry School

If the whole school is busy writing poems, you could have a celebration event at the end of the week where each class performs a class favourite. Daily assemblies could start with a poem or focus on a poet. Classes could have poetry walls of thematic words for feelings, useful rhyming lists, or large examples of analysed poems that remind pupils of the structures they can use to strengthen their poems. Each class might have to produce a type of poem by the end of the week and this can be written together, as mentioned above.

For loads of other activity ideas, as well as poems for children to read, learn and explore, have a look at this full page of poetry resources on CGP+.

Above all, poetry is so diverse that there is always a way in, a way to share and introduce. It could be Shakespeare, or it could be the poetry in a pupil’s favourite song. If you unravel the mystery, ease the trickiness, find a secret doorway in, you can make poetry something everyone can access and enjoy.
 

I have been a teacher for 28 years, deputy head for about twenty-four of those, and taught from Reception all the way up to Year 6. In this time, I did a two-year stint with my local authority as an adviser for ICT, working in a wide range of schools with teachers and children. I have always been a class teacher at heart, inspired by the wonderful minds of pupils, which makes teaching such an intense but creative and satisfying career.

Take a look at CGP+ resources by Simon.