Creating poems

Hello everyone again!

 

First of all, I want you to visit my partner’s blog because I think she has thought about the feelings we have at this time of the course, and I totally agree with everything she has said (DEC, 4):

 http://englishteacherinwonderland.blogspot.com.es/ 

 

And now, I am going to explain the reason of why I am writing again about poetry for children. My last post was focused on the importance of a poem in a little boy. It was more focused in reading than in creating poems by their own. I would like you to think about if all of us, including children, are able to create a poem following different steps.

 

I had never written a poem before I had to do it for completing a task, so I felt very confused and afraid of doing it for the first time with my age. Finally, I could do it without any problem, and I also liked the results I got. It is easier than we think, and that’s what we have to tell our children.

 

Do you know what these is?

1.       Haiku. It is an unrhymed, syllabic poem adapted from the Japanese. Its structure is composed by three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. A haiku is necessarily imagistic and concrete because of its brevity.

 

 

2.       List poem. It is a simple poem which consists in the repetition of a structure many times. It could be only a list of things, or a sentence repeated during all the poem.

 

3.       Letter poem. It is an unreal letter for someone or something without much sense. It has to be a rhythm in the last syllables.

 

 

4.       Riddle poem. It is a description of something in order to guess what the poem is talking about. It could be finished with “Who am I?”.

 

 

The pictures correspond with the four kind of poems I have done.

 

The teacher can focus the activities related with creating poems in different ways, although it is very important to give clear instructions of what they have to do. Giving them only the kind of poem could be difficult, so the teacher can play with the context, or even images. She can give children some pictures in order to facilitate them the creation of sentences taking into account the story and the characters.

 

As I have said before, “Creating poems is easier than we think”. Why? Because it is an opened activity where they can use their imagination, originality and also their thought about the real life. The role of the teacher should be related with evolving them in these activities. Children without imagination think that this topic is boring, so we have to try them not to think that. Looking for rhythms is interesting and fun, once you have you mind opened.

 

Think about it!