21 March is World Poetry Day.
How can you use the internet to help you teach poetry to your class? Start here to get some good ideas and excellent links: http://www.readwritethink.org/calendar/calendar_day.asp?id=308
More wonderful links and teachers’ notes: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/offbyheart/links.shtml
And some examples of simple poems written by young children for internet publishing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6470000/newsid_6474600/6474643.stm
Before they start writing poetry, children should be given lots of opportunities to read and listen to poetry. Let them listen to the rhythms and rhymes of poetry. Let them observe the patterns and shapes of poetry. Why did the poet choose those words and sounds? Print out copies of fun, children’s poems so the children can see them. Record a poem in your most expressive voice, using the microphone in the computer lab, and post it on your class page on the school website. Include poetry in learners’ handwriting exercises… And of course, read and enjoy poetry yourself!
Here’s one idea from the Scholastic Bright Ideas book on teaching poetry:
“Children find simple nonsense poetry good fun to read and write. The following poem ‘I said my pyjamas’ is a typical example of how to interchange one or two words, still retain meaning and create an enjoyable, humorous poem.
I said my pyjamas
I put on my prayers,
I went up my slippers,
I took off my stairs,
I switched off the bed,
I jumped in the light,
The reason for this is,
You kissed me goodnight.
Ask the children to use the same sort of structure to write their own poems about different everyday occurrences:
- getting up in the morning;
- having breakfast;
- going to school;
- bath time;
- following a recipe.
As in the example above, they can write one idea per line and then switch words between lines.”
Over to you now: Do you have a favourite poem? Please share it with us all in honour of world poetry day. Perhaps you have one that you wrote yourself? Let’s make this a poetry blog this week!
Here’s one I like, by Jenny Joseph:
When I Am Old
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings,
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
Or only bread and pickle for a week,
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me
are not too shocked and surprised,
When suddenly I am old
and start to wear purple!
