Why make time for poetry?

Writing poetry, particularly with elementary schoolers, is often limited to holiday acrostics and “easy” forms like haiku, or limericks. During a residency, I spend between three and six days at a school. It is a big commitment of time and resources for schools -- but when we work deeply with poetry, students’ writing seems to leap off the page. Children begin to see themselves as poets, and many of them bring this new confidence to their regular classroom writing.

Poetry in Elementary School

Many Maryland elementary schools recently adopted the 6+1 Trait Writing Model (see source note below). Some of the teachers I work with have been amazed at the way their students synthesize several of these traits when writing poetry.

Trait 1: “Ideas make up the content of the piece of writing – the message.”

Poetry is often defined by its brevity. You’ll hear poets talking about “economy of language” – getting rid of extra words to hone an important image or idea. It sounds fancy, but this is a great skill for students to learn.

I often teach the poem “Good Hotdogs,” by poet and children’s author Sandra Cisneros. At first glance, “Good Hotdogs” is a simple food memory poem. When we look at the closing lines of the poem, though, there is a message. The poem is about a shared experience – the coziness of eating lunch with an older sister.

Some students opt to write a sensory poem in response to “Good Hotdogs,” describing a favorite – or least favorite – food. Others reach for that idea of a message, connecting a food to a memory or a person. The following poem is by a third grader from Baltimore.

Steak

Sizzling on the grill
In the cool of the evening.
Juicy, tender insides. I feel
Parading inside me.
While my dad sits at
The table, piping hot
On the plate is a single
Piece of steak. Still sizzling
On the flat surface, boiling hot.
Ready to get eaten,
It is. We get a knife out
And cut it into pieces.
While me and my dad
Chat, the steak in our mouths.

 

Trait 2: “Organization is the internal structure of the piece – the thread of meaning and the logical pattern of the ideas.”

I teach children that the word “stanza” means “room” in Italian. Each stanza contains its own idea, just as each room in a house has a different purpose. Elizabeth Coatsworth (author of The Cat Who Went to Heaven) has a poem, “Swift Things Are Beautiful” that uses two stanzas to explore opposites in nature.

Using this poem as a model, my students have written two stanza poems comparing school & home, hot & cold, rough & smooth things, and big & small animals.

 

Trait 3: “Voice is the soul of the piece. It is what makes the writer’s style singular, as his or her feelings and convictions come out through the words.”

Poetry is often a safe venue for students to write about their feelings. Teaching them to use simile, I encourage students to write a poem where they turn a specific emotion into an animal. The resulting poems often have a powerful voice, like this one from a fourth grader:

Lion

When I feel mad
I am like a Lion
I show my sharp teeth
And I growl. My feet stomp on
The ground.

This animal simile poem from third grader seems simple, but the voice captures a sense of joy:

When I feel happy I am
Like a bird singing a song
I like. When I am happy
I feel like I am flying
With 500 birds with me.

 

Trait 4: “Word Choice is at its best when it includes the use of rich, colorful, and precise language that moves and enlightens the reader.”

Onomatopoeia is a wonderful way to teach word choice. Students and I have fun brainstorming words like “pop,” “crash,” “zoom,” and “whoosh.” We write poems about their favorite activities or places they know well, using sounds as clues. When the poet reads his or her work aloud, the rest of the class has to guess where the poet is or what he/she is doing in the poem.

 

Trait 5: “Sentence Fluency is the flow of language and the sound of word patterns.”

In addition to having the students make corrections (see Trait 6), I use revision time to teach poetic meter, line and rhyme. How do we make a poem look like a poem instead of a paragraph?  (See +1.) Even younger students understand that short lines with very few words can quicken the pace of a poem. If they want to give their poems a slow and relaxed feeling, longer lines can create that tone.

This is a third grader’s response to the poem, “The Unwritten,” by W.S. Merwin. I love how this student uses rhyme to get his creative idea across.

Pencil

Every pencil in the world has a word inside,
But until you say it, it will quietly hide.
But when you say it, it will pop right out.
It will give you a squirm if the word is trout.
It will give you a really strong voice if the word is shout.
So you rather find it, don’t let it quietly hide.
That’s why every pencil has a special word inside.

Trait 6: “Conventions represent level of correctness – the extent to which the writer uses grammar and mechanics with precision.”

+1: “Presentation relates to form and layout – the physical appearance of the finished work.”

Many times, a teacher will express surprise that a particular student is enjoying the residency and actually likes writing poetry. Poetry touches children in a different place than their regular classroom writing tasks. They know they are doing something special!

Source for 6+1 Trait Writing Model: Experimental Study on the Impact of the 6+ 1 Trait Writing Model on Student Achievement in Writing, 2004 Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.