Poetry part 2

Using non-fiction to inspire

The fire came from nowhere
Its vicious flames raging and ruining everything in their path
Terrifying and scorching people old and young
And my beloved home
It wiped away my 20 years of hard work in mere minutes
Leaving me with nothing but charcoal and numbness
I’ll never see my friends and neighbours again
I feel guilty yet grateful
I still have my boys.

Directed task

One hour lesson plan for Key Stage 2 class – What similes are and how we can use them when writing poetry.

I would start off by reading them examples of two or three short, funny poems with similes in (the children would be sitting on the carpet and the poems on the IWB).Then I would explain what similes are and ask them to listen again and discuss with their neighbour to try and identify the similes within the poems. After this I would explain the effect of using these in poetry and maybe play a game where individuals (picked out of a hat) come to the front and try to match parts of a sentence up to make a simile using around eight examples of well known phrases such as “As white as a ghost”, “As hard as nails”. They could then go back to their tables and make up sentences with 5 or 6 similes to describe their partner using their physical characteristics for inspiration e.g. hair, eyes, nose, mouth. They could then draw a caricature of their classmate to put on the wall and copy their poems out neatly.

Inspirations

I found writing poetry difficult yet enjoyable. I enjoyed writing the ode most of all as it was fun and had a light-hearted tone. The most difficult poem to write was the one inspired from non-fiction. I realised this was because a lot of news stories are depressing and it seems as if we are trivialising events that affect people’s lives by putting them into a poem and paying so much attention to the way it sounds. I suppose if a news story has any similarity to something in your own life it is easier to write about. I found a woman’s account of the bush fires in Australia on the BBC website and wrote from her perspective. I wrote most of the poems one after the other but found that by the time I had to write from a mole’s perspective I hit a brick wall and had to ask for help with that one! I find it difficult to think of rhymes that fit well so I am usually more comfortable focusing on using other literary devices such as imagery and alliteration. The poem I am happiest with was the ‘inspiration from sound’.

Writing on demand was more difficult than I had imagined although the tasks we were given were good at focusing us and I’m sure some of them would appeal to children who want to practise writing poetry. I would be careful to use only one of these ideas per lesson to encourage the children to create quality over quantity.