National Poetry Day

It’s a day for celebrating the art form, and (if you work in a school) doing so while handily hitting the National Curriculum’s objectives regarding the enjoyment, discussion and performance of poetry.

We’ve put together a little selection of activities which might inspire you in your planning for Thursday. Please accept my apologies for the overuse of alliteration below; I got carried away! Easily adaptable, these ideas can be tailored to the needs and abilities of your class. They should all spark interest and enjoyment while meeting the needs of the curriculum, so here’s hoping that one or two of them stand out as ideal for you and your class!

• Pass-it-on poems. I used to love the game ‘consequences’, writing a story line-by-line and passing them around the table. Pass-it-on poems work the same way (but without folding the paper to hide what’s been written before!). In a small group or as a whole class, get each child to write the first line of a poem. They then pass on their first line to one child next to them and in turn receive a line from the child on their other side. Everyone then writes the second line of their new poem, before passing them on again. The process repeats until you decide the poems are complete! You can make the number of passes as high or low as you like, and can set rhyme schemes and rhythm patterns if you wish. Children are continually pushed to understand new poems and to come up with creative poetry of their own off the back of that understanding. To top it all off, the results can be truly hilarious!
•  
• Interesting imagery. Read through a poem (or poems) full of metaphors, similes or great description, discussing which images the children most enjoy. Have them produce art work based on their favourite image. You could encourage them to write a sentence or two explaining the poetic image and why they liked it, and present the two together like an exhibition piece.
•  
• Poem presentation. Focussing more on the performance and discussion of poetry, this simple exercise can be done in groups as large or small as you feel your pupils will be comfortable. Either beforehand at home, or in class with a selection of poetry, get the children to read several poems and find their favourite. Have them perform it to the group and explain what they liked about it. They could also field questions from their classmates, if you felt it would be worthwhile.
•  
• Prose to poetry. Poetry can be so much more intense and focussed than prose writing, and this activity really highlights the differences between the two styles. Find an appropriate piece of prose writing, full of description, action or sentiment, and challenge your pupils to shred it down into whatever form of poetry you choose. They will be forced to consider their language very carefully, expressing complex thoughts in a few carefully-chosen words. It’s great for stretching their vocabulary and showing them how language can be crafted in different ways.
•  
• Different destinations. A fun creative task here, which will get children comparing their own poems to those of their peers. Give the same opening line of a poem to each child in the class (or a one of a handful of opening lines, if you want more variety) and encourage them to write a poem leading on from it. As with everything, add in/take away style parameters as you wish. Once the poems are complete, get children to compare their poems (ensuring those pupils with matching opening lines are put together, if you used several different lines) and talk about the similarities and differences between them. It’s amazing how poems which start in the same place can reach a diverse range of conclusions!
•  
• Pull-it-apart poem posters. Perfect for display pieces, or as catalyst for personal writing, these posters let children get a bit ‘hands on’ when analysing a poem. Stick a suitable piece of poetry in the centre of a large sheet of paper, hand over some chunky pens and let the children pull it apart! Rhyme, rhythm, content, imagery; none of it is safe! The groups’ thoughts and reactions to all parts of the poem can be scribbled down around it, with underlining, circles and arrows giving some sense of order to proceedings. These posters give pupils’ ideas a place to bubble over and feed off each other, without the restriction that can sometimes come from constructing a more formal piece of analytic writing.

So there you have it! Six ideas to get you and your class’s minds buzzing with poetry. Use any forms of poetry you like, from limericks to cinquains to song lyrics to villanelles!* Enjoy National Poetry Day 2019, and let us know how you get on!

*I only included villanelles because I had never heard of them before they cropped up during my research for this blog and they sounded fancy. Which they are, if your definition of ‘fancy’ is ‘complicated’. I wouldn’t actually advise using them unless you know your quatrains from your tercets. I certainly don’t!

Ed is a former teaching assistant who has been learning and creating as part of Classroom Secrets since he wrote his first guided reading pack for the company in 2015. He loves writing, and tries to make every resource engaging and fun. He’s a rugby and basketball fan, and believes that one day he will be able to dunk, which goes to show that he’s got an able imagination, if nothing else.