Along with all the author visits and book signings I do, I also spend some of my time teaching poetry and other writing forms to kids and teens. I often have teachers express to me how hard they find it to teach poetry (or any kind of writing)?to the kids in their classroom, so I figured I would offer a few tips that I have found work for me when it comes to getting kids excited about writing in general and poetry in particular.
*First off, allow kids freedom with poetry writing, especially when they are first starting out. Free verse tends to be the most accessible and least intimidating form to begin with. If you try to force your students?to rhyme or follow a form, you will quickly have a room of frustrated kids.
*Show your kids how much variety there really is in the poetry world. For many children their experience with poetry is limited to nursery rhymes and Dr. Suess.?Make your classroom a poetry-friendly zone. Hang up posters with different kinds of poems on them, stock your?bookshelves with an assortment of kid-friendly poetry books and make sure you include great examples of poetry in your curriculum throughout the year.
*Read?your students poems that?were written by kids their age. Before a child?will feel confident that they can write poetry, they need to?know that other kids their age have been successful?with poetry writing and have even gotten published. A few great resources to find poems by kids and teens include the magazines?Highlights for Children, Teen Ink?and Stone Soup.
*Make it fun. Allow kids to play poetry games. One?fun medium that has always seemed to be?popular with kids and teens is magnetic poetry. If you have never played with magnetic poetry yourself, feel free to check out www.magneticpoetry.com to see what it is all about.
*Use prompts the kids will actually care about. The fastest way to lose your students? interest is to give them boring, stuffy prompts. Don?t ask them to write an ode to spring or something predictable like that. Instead, ask them to write about?bullies, pets, friends, dreams,?things they love, things they hate, what makes them angry, etc. Just because kids are young doesn?t mean they don?t have feelings and emotions every bit as strong as adults do.
*Make your class a safe, constructive review zone. Encourage?kids to share their poems with the class so that they can receive feedback, but make sure all the kids know that only kind, helpful comments are allowed. No teasing, jeering or laughing at a fellow student?s work?(unless the poem is meant to be funny of course).
I hope you have found these tips to be useful. Feel free to let me know what works for you and what doesn?t. You can contact me at Shojobeatgirl@live.com if you have any comments or questions, or you can simply leave a comment below. Also, feel free to contact me if you are interested in having me visit your library, class or school!
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