Poetry Tasks

Waves

Retreat, escape, rush and surge,
Whisper the waves,
Closer, closer,
CRASH,
EXPLODE,
Recoil and wait.


Ode To Dance

Liberating art that frees my shackles,
Allow weighty limbs to soar skyward bound,
Reach, stretch, leap, clamber, pulling me upwards,
Released from chains my body is found.

Cool currents of peace run through my spirit,
Chain reactions ripple into the air,
Self unite under almighty presence,
Conquer oppression, expression flows forth.

As light winds lift, so my heart rejoices,
Driven by pounding, resonating beats,
Softening thy rhythm sweet, gentle voices,
Whispering, calling, urging in trance.


Chasing Time

Just ahead, out of reach, come back to me,
He laughs and cackles, a child full of glee.

If only he knew my grave need to wait,
He’d pause, clasping hands, like a fish caught with bate.


Snowman

Winters chill,
Frosty day,
Frozen still,
Molded clay.

Carrot nose,
Coal black laugh,
Sculpted pose,
Wrapping scarf.

Sun arrives,
Snow away,
Nowt survives,
But puddled clay.


Lasting Happiness

Fierce firework shot fuels celebration,
Bright sparks flash over reveler’s head,
Engulfing flames set light to fulfillment,
Lasting Happiness maimed and fifteen dead.


Moles

Overhead boots pound, into a puddle they splash,
My house tumbles as they trample and crash,
What do they care, strolling carefree around,
What would they do if their house tumbled down?
Panic I’m sure would criss-cross their faces,
Shout, screech and scream, they’d holler disgraces,
But little old me just keeps on at it,
Making a home for boots to ransack it.


Reflections

The process of writing was more enjoyable than I expected. I did not like the poetry lesson, I felt like I was churning out poem after poem on a production line. None of the products I was particularly proud of. This was more to do with the time constraint than the need to produce on demand. Working at home I had time to edit and play with word combinations and rhyming patterns. Writing on demand is important to do because if I had not been set the tasks I would never have written poetry out of choice and this is the same for lots of the pupils we will be teaching. Never writing poetry for fun it was interesting to see what came from each task. I enjoyed writing the perspectives poem, I could hear the mole’s voice as I wrote, having a story seemed to help me. I found the rhyming poem difficult to start because I did not have a theme in mind and because I was concentrating on the rhyme the content of the poem became secondary. The Ode to Dance probably developed my skills the most because it involved researching a style of poetry and writing with a fixed structure in mind. I found it helpful to read examples and look at the rules of an Ode before writing one.

If I were teaching poetry I would work for longer lengths of time on each skill or style that was being developed (e.g. rhyming), reading poems that model the skill and discussing word choices. To encourage pupils to think about word choice they could work in pairs to decide which words (out of a selection) are most effective in one of the poems that model the skill. This will help pupils to think about word choices in their own poems and encourage them to edit. Peer support can be an effective way to edit work, discussing poems in pairs and offering feedback. The final stage, presenting the poem can help pupils to think about the purpose of their poem and how they want it to be read. Reading the poems aloud can help pupils to think about the tone and the stresses they may want to convey on the paper, using bold, capital letters for example to show a change in volume. Writing poetry is important to do because it can lead to a greater appreciation and understanding of the techniques poets employ.

My idea for a key stage two lesson came from the task that turned a newspaper article into a poem. The aim of the lesson is to write a poem from a diary entry written by the pupils. The pupils will have been asked to keep a diary for the weekend, paying particular attention to their feelings. I would start the lesson by asking pupils to share the most interesting part of their diary entry with a partner. This gives pupils control over what they share. I would then read two poems about activities that pupils may have done over the weekend, making sure that one of them is about a mundane activity, that all class members would have done, like eating tea. By reading an example of a poem about a mundane event pupils that did not do anything out of the ordinary on the weekend will have a starting point. To hi-light the differences between the two styles of writing I would ask the class "how do you know when you are reading a poem?" I would then explain that they are going to use their diary entries to write a poem, using the features of a poem discussed. To help to generate ideas I would ask for suggestions about what their poems could be about, writing these on the board. I would give the pupils the remainder of the lesson to write their poems. For the less able pupils I would provide starter sentences. If pupils finished before the end of the lesson I would pair them up to share their poem with a partner and give feedback.