Sadly, I discovered too late in my classroom-teaching life how poetry can dramatically enliven a writing workshop environment in a classroom, and help young writers--especially the struggling ones--to find their voices. It's magical.

And it's amazingly easy and fun to teach.

I have assembled below, and on the next page, a few thoughts and references to help you think about and implement poetry in your classroom. I hope you find them a help.

Please let me know how I can help you bring poetry to your classroom!

• Click Here for a bibliography of resources to get you started.

Why do poetry with kids?

A quick argument for teachers. (As if they needed convincing!)

Poetry, I've discovered, can be a stunningly important writing destination in the curriculum, even if it isn't mandated.

How?

* Tangled writers (and readers) can be turned on by poetry's shorter format, its rhythms, and the emotional connection that writing poetry demands.

* Working with kids on careful word selection--including the magic of comparisons through simile and metaphor--can amazingly transform their poetry and their prose. Horizons are suddenly expanded and kids take more care in revising!

* Kids love sharing their own poems, and those of others, orally. Poetry reading is a fabulous way to teach presentation skills and build confidence.

* Kids often write from their heart with poems, more than in their prose. You (and they) get a peek at what's inside that poet's heart.

Images, Music and Feelings

In my opinion, poetry's greatest gifts to writers of all ages is its ability to foster the creation of wonderfully new images and music, and to explore feelings. It's a pretty neat trick considering that the poet's only tools are words.

Getting kids to realize that they have the power and gifts to bring these three jewels shimmering to life in their writing is one of my goals in my school program visits. If children can develop the courage, faith, and the tools to create images, music and feelings in their writing--both poetry and prose--then the positive reverberations last life-long.

Images

Among the tools of poetry I stress most is getting kids to look at the images of our lives through a different lens. Seeing things in new ways is the essence of poetry. Most kids aren't used to doing this: looking for new words and ways to describe commonplace experiences.

Using some fun exercises, I try to work with children to paint new mental pictures in unusual ways. When you use the comparison palettes of metaphor and simile, and look at the world with different eyes, you always uncover surprising ideas and feelings. One way to explore this with kids is to take a work of a well-known poet, remove some of the figurative language (leave blanks) then use stickies to fill in the childrens' own metaphors, as they guess what the poet may have used.

For longer multi-day residencies, I'll often take the kids out on short ?observation walks,? where we closely observe our natural world--sometimes sketching, sometimes writing, or just watching carefully. When we return to the classroom we'll transform our observations into poems--using poetic language and images. I always model this process with a short group poem first. I bring a large assortment of intriguing natural props to use if we can't get outside.

With the older kids I also stress (and model) the critical importance of revision in their writing process--searching and examining each word of a draft for the best way to say what they want to say. I know, first-hand, that revision just might be a teacher's greatest challenge! And it can be a dirty word for most younger writers. I try to inspire kids to see revision in a more positive light. Poetry, because of its shorter format, makes this process easier to grasp.

Music

Depending on the age of the group and the focus of the workshop, I also try to introduce children to the power that comes from expressing their feelings and experiences with the musical tools of poetry. These include rhyme, repetition/patterns, rhythm/meter, and alliteration, among others. These often come naturally for kids, maybe from early exposure to poetic writing. But equally frequently these tools are not as obvious or simple for children.

Through some fun group exercises (usually with couplets), I demonstrate how tricky it can be to find the right rhyme--to say exactly what you want, the way you want. At the same time, we discuss the importance of getting the right poetic rhythm--to make a poem come alive with its own music! Together we search for repetition and patterns in the work of well-known poets, that I keep close by on my easel.

Feelings

Arguably the greatest gift poetry can bring to the writing of children is opening them up to share what is in their hearts. When kids struggle to think of something (anything!) to write about (as they seemed perpetually to do in my own classrooms), it's usually because they are not accustomed to sharing feelings.

With some fun individual writing exercises (and by first giving them permission and encouragement), we can begin the process of opening up. One of my favorites is creating a ?heart map? as Georgia Heard calls it, where we explore the feelings and experiences that mean the most to us. Often this exercise opens a floodgate of wonderful stuff that can be tapped again and again. Also I love to get kids to think and write about a Special Place in their lives and share why it's so treasured, in free verse poems.

A Great Resource

The most marvelous resource for sharing poetry in the classroom I've found, and turn to all the time, is Georgia Heard's book, Awakening the Heart, Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School (Heinemann, 1998). I can't recommend this book highly enough. I pull many of my workshop ideas and exercises directly from this treasure. For more ideas and resources, see the bibliography by clicking here.

Teachers as Poets, Poets as Teachers

Just as kids need both permission to be poets and mentors to encourage them, teachers need the same. Living, breathing, nearby-mentors are sometimes pretty hard to find, but I find books can fill the gap.

As I have delightedly found, nothing brings the process of writing into clearer focus for a teacher than to experiment with writing and reading poetry him or herself. Mimicking a well-known poet isn't such a bad place to start, if you're stuck. Find some favorite poets and read their work aloud! Poetry must be read aloud! Those that don't grab you after a reading or two, put aside, at least for now.

As a child, I found (and I am finding again as a big child) that poetry is a very personal thing. In the past, I always felt that if I didn't 'get it,' I was 'dumb.' But now I know I'm allowed to have my own taste and opinion! As I tell the kids, it's OK not to like something, as long as you've tried it. What a leap!!

Creating a Classroom Poetry Environment

Also, I can't make a strong enough case (Georgia Heard does it best) for making poetry a regular part of your classroom. The results alone in improvements to the quality of your children's prose writing will be enough proof.

Your commitment might be as simple as daily or weekly readings of great poems (or weekly memorization homework, which my first and second graders loved), all the way to creating a total poetry environment, that Heard describes in her latest book.

Whatever your energy level is on this, the kids stand to benefit in countless ways, as long as they feel safe and surrounded by encouragement to write from their hearts.

Questions?

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to write or e-mail me.

Thanks for reading and GOOD LUCK!

TED SCHEU
P.O. Box 564
Middlebury, VT 05753
Email