Teaching Poetry in the Primary Classroom E-Book

Gervase Phinn

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

When asked by the school inspector what he thought of poetry, an eleven year old replied that "it's all la-dida and daffodils, isn't it?" In his primary school the boy had come across very little poetry apart from nursery rhymes, snatches of rhyming verse and a few comic pieces and nonsense poems. Poetry to him was something arcane, not really related to his own life. He had studied no powerful, challenging, contemplative, arresting, quirky poems and had written very few poems himself. His teacher admitted that he was no English specialist, had received few ideas at college on the teaching of poetry and didn't really know where to start. As children progress through the primary school they need to be exposed to a rich diet of poetry and encouraged to read, perform and write it themselves. Providing a varied and stimulating environment is essential if is to flourish. In addition, children need specifi c guidance and ideas to start them off writing their own poems. This book, written by a former teacher and school inspector, and popular and widely published children's poet, offers an accessible, practical and structured programme for the teaching of this sometimes neglected aspect of the English curriculum.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

1 Creating the Environment

2 Reading Poetry with Infants

3 Writing Poetry with Infants

4 Some Starting Points for Poetry with Juniors

5 Miniature Poems

6 Patterned Poems

7 Limericks

8 Clerihews

9 Alphabet Poems

10 Acrostic Poems

11 Concrete Poems

12 Riddles

13 Ballads

14 Cautionary Verse

15 Conversation Poems

16 Poems from Other Cultures

17 Poems from Experience

18 Poems from the Environment

19 Poems from Poems

20 Poems from Photographs and Paintings

21 A Poetry Project: Myths and Legends

22 Poems of Praise

23 Poets in School

24 Learning Poetry

25 Endpiece

Twelve Edited Anthologies of Poetry

Twelve Individual Poetry Collections

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Copyright

I think that poetry should surprise by fine excess and not by singularity—it should strike the reader as a reading of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. Its touches of beauty should never be halfway, thereby making the reader breathless instead of content; the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the sun come natural to him—shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight—but it is easier to think what poetry should be than to write it—and this leads me on to another axiom. That if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

John Keats in a Letter to John Taylor, 27 February 1818

Poetry has great educative power, but in many schools it suffers from lack of commitment, misunderstanding, and the wrong kind of orientation. There are few more rewarding experiences in all English teaching than when the teacher and pupil meet in the enjoyment of a poem.

A Language for Life: The Bullock Report

Poetry is a most wonderful art: to read, to listen to, to attempt. It takes the gift of language and pays it the respect of fashioning it into the finest forms while retaining a grip on the human-measure of life. For many, it is dinned into their unwilling heads at school, trailed across their noses in restless adolescence and ever after considered a part of another world. Not the real ordinary world. Yet the real world has been the poet’s prime concern. And many of us believe that the real world has been represented more accurately and powerfully by poets than by anyone else.

Melvyn Bragg in How to Enjoy Poetry by Vernon Scannell

If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body feel so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Emily Dickinson in How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch

The fact that I still recall poems with ease and can delight in them as verbal music means that they were bedding the ear with a kind of linguistic hard core that could be built on some day.

Seamus Heaney in Seamus Heaney: The Crisis of Identity by Floyd Collins

Chapter 1

Creating the Environment

‘I’m very good at poetry you know.’

The speaker, with all the honesty, enthusiasm and confidence of an eight year old, was called Helen. I met her on my visit to an infant school to look at the range of writing undertaken by the children.

‘Would you like to see my poems?’ she continued.

‘I would love to,’ I replied.

She smiled. ‘I’ll fetch my portfolio.’

Helen was right—she was good at poetry. Her folder of poems contained a colourful description of the local canal: straight and long like the dark green stalk of a tall tulip; a holiday memory featuring her father who growled and grunted, sighed and shouted when the car would not start; rhyming verse about the supermarket where the shelves were full of packets of sugar and cans of beans, Bananas and apples and tangerines, Carrots and onions, potatoes and greens, and the thoughts of a Roman soldier, cold and alone and away from home. I asked if I could make a copy of her latest poem.

‘If you wait a minute,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you a print out.’

Here is her lively descriptive verse:

From the school window

I can see where a mole has been burrowing.

The field is lumpy with little brown hills of soil.

Down below where it’s dark and damp,

He digs and digs with big flat paws,

Looking for a juicy worm.

‘Do you write poetry?’ Helen asked, handing me a copy of her poem.

‘Yes I do,’ I replied.

‘Do you get the rhythms?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the rhymes?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Do you illustrate your poems?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

She smiled. ‘I do,’ she said, ‘I think it makes them look nicer on the page.’

‘And why are you so good at writing poetry?’ I asked.

She sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t really know. I like to read them. We have lots of poetry books in our classroom. Our teacher likes poems and she reads a poem to us every day after she’s marked the register and we always write a poem when we do our topic.’

With this kind of environment and encouragement it should come as no surprise that Helen is such an accomplished poet. Helen’s teacher is an enthusiast and her passion for poetry is infectious. Listed below are some of the things she does to keep herself well-informed and to encourage her pupils to enjoy, appreciate and understand the poetry she presents to them.

1 Provides a wide selection of good, appropriate poetry anthologies in the book corner of the classroom. This collection includes pop-up books, nursery rhymes, modern and traditional anthologies, scripts and poems for reading aloud, verse on tape, poetry posters and cards.

2 Reads a wide selection of poems to the children over the year: poems that make the children laugh, think and feel sad, poems with strong rhythms and gentle lyrics, verse from Africa, Asia, Australia and the US, as well as from the British Isles.

3 Allows some time for the children to browse among the poetry and reading books and for them to read poems quietly, listen to them on tape and read the poems of other children.

4 Collects the children’s poems—some hand-written and illustrated, others word-processed—in a class anthology.

5 Encourages the children to keep a special book for writing in their favourite poems.

6 Collects together her own favourite poems in a folder and compiles a list, which she adds to regularly, of poetry suitable for the children.

7 Encourages the children to keep a special folder (the portfolio) of their own poems.

8 Reads a short, entertaining or challenging poem each day. Sometimes she encourages the pupils to talk about the poem but on other occasions nothing is said—the children just enjoy the experience.

9 Integrates poetry into the topic work the children undertake.

10 Uses poems for handwriting practice.

11 Encourages the children to perform their own poems and published verse in the classroom and at assembly.

12 Enters children for poetry competitions.

13 Encourages children to learn poems by heart.

14 Invites writers into school to work with the children and share their experience of the process of writing—where their ideas come from, the research they have to undertake, how they draft and revise, proof-read and submit for publication.

15 Organises Book Weeks during which teachers, parents, writers and advisers visit the school to contribute to the various activities.

16 Mounts colourful and interesting displays of the children’s poetry in the classroom and along the corridors.

17 Shows children how real poets draft, redraft, alter, edit and refine their work.

18 Talks to the children about poetic techniques and devices: rhythm, rhyme, imagery, contrast, repetition, figures of speech, as they arise in the poems she reads to them and in the children’s own efforts.

19 Uses paintings, line drawings, photographs, drama and music as stimuli for the children’s poetic writing.

20 Encourages the children to write in a range of structures: snapshot poems, haiku, alphabet poems, concrete verse, acrostics, limericks, riddles, free and rhyming verse.

21 Keeps up with her reading of poetry by visiting the School Library Service HQ, being a member the Poetry Society, reading the reviews in The SchoolLibrarian and other journals and keeping in close and regular contact with local bookshops.

Providing this sort of rich and stimulating environment is essential if poetry is to flourish. In addition children need specific guidance and ideas to start them off. It is not enough to merely give children a topic and expect them to write a poem.

Over the years as a teacher, adviser, school inspector and visiting poet, I have worked with primary and infant school teachers and their pupils in an effort to give poetry a higher profile, promote its enjoyment and appreciation, and encourage the children to write a range of verse. The following suggestions are distilled from the work I have undertaken in schools.

Chapter 2

Reading Poetry with Infants

There is no doubt that the combination of rhythm, rhyme and striking illustration brings the reader the closest to a successful and satisfying reading that he or she has ever known. The lines unfold effortlessly once the text has been heard once or twice and the new reader experiences a flow and fluency that may hitherto have been elusive. Then the reader is liberated to enjoy poetry’s particular way of saying things.

Judith Graham and Elizabeth Plackett, Developing Readers

When they arrive at the infant classroom many children will have had some experience of poetry. They will have heard television jingles and know some of the popular nursery rhymes. At playgroup or in the nursery some will have been introduced to poems with lively rhythms, strong rhymes, choruses and repetition and been encouraged, as they sit together on the carpet, to take part—often adding actions and mimes. The infant teacher will draw on this experience and those children who have learnt rhymes by heart will delight in performing them. Many will know the popular nursery rhymes: ‘Humpty Dumpty’, ‘Jack and Jill’, ‘Georgie Porgy’, ‘Simple Simon’ and ‘Little Bo-Peep’ but be unfamiliar with such nursery verse as ‘Good King Arthur’, ‘Jack-a-Nory’, ‘As I was Going to St Ives’ and ‘They That Wash on Monday’. The teacher might introduce the children to some of these old and unusual rhymes by encouraging them to join in with the chorus:

THE FARMER AND THE RAVEN

A farmer went trotting,

Upon his grey mare,

Bumpety, Bumpety, Bump!

With his daughter behind him,

So rosy and fair,

Lumpety, Lumpety, Lump!

A raven cried: ‘Croak!’

And they all tumbled down,

Bumpety, Bumpety, Bump!

The mare broke her knees,

And the farmer his crown,

Lumpety, Lumpety, Lump!

The mischievous raven,

Flew laughing away,

Bumpety, Bumpety, Bump!

And vowed he would serve them

The same the next day,

Bumpety, Bumpety, Bump!

Once they are familiar with the traditional nursery rhymes the teacher might read some alternatives. Here are a few of mine:

‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?’

‘I suggest you read a gardening book,

And then you’ll get to know!’

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

Their feet they felt like lead.

Said Jack, ‘Oh, let’s not bother, Jill,

We’ll go to town instead.’

Little Miss Mabel,

Sat at the table,

Eating her curry and rice.

There came down a snake

Which swallowed her plate,

Which really was not very nice.

Little Miranda sat on the veranda

Having a noonday nap.

There buzzed down a bee

Which sat on her knee,

And Miranda said, ‘Ooh, fancy that!’

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

He didn’t shout and he didn’t scream,

For below him was a trampoline.

(Published in What I Like! Poems for the Very Young by Gervase Phinn, Child’s Play International)

The teacher could supplement the nursery rhymes with other popular repetitive verse:

TWENTY-FOUR ROBBERS

Not last night but the night before …

Twenty-four robbers

Came a-knocking at my door,

I asked them what they wanted,

And this is what they said ...

H ... O ... T... hot peppers!!!

FLYING MY KITE

My kite on the ground

Is paper and string,

But up in the sky

It will dance and will sing.

A kite in the sky

Will twirl and will caper,

But back on the ground

Is just string and brown paper.

MARY

One, two, three, four,

Mary’s at the cottage door.

She’s eating cherries off a plate,

Five, six, seven, eight.

LADYBIRD

Ladybird, ladybird,

Fly away home,

Your house is on fire,

Your children are gone.

Ladybird, ladybird,

Lost and alone,

No family to care for,

No work to be done.

WHISKY FRISKY SQUIRREL

Whisky, frisky, hipperty hop,

Up he goes,

To the tall tree top!

Whirly, twirly, round and round,

Down he scampers

To the ground.

Furly, curly, what a tail,

Tall as a feather

And broad as a sail.

Where’s his supper?

In the shell.

Snappy, cracky, out it fell!

Young children love chanting this traditional and highly rhythmic verse:

IN A DARK, DARK WOOD!

In a dark, dark wood

There was a dark, dark house,

And in that dark, dark house

There was a dark, dark room,

And in that dark, dark room

There was a dark, dark cupboard,

And in that dark, dark cupboard

There was a dark, dark shelf,

And on that dark, dark shelf

There was a dark, dark box,

And in that dark, dark box

There is a little furry mouse.

I have given this old tale a new twist in one of my own poems which older infant children have performed with gusto:

IN A DARK, DARK TOWN!

In a dark, dark town,

There was a dark, dark street,

And in that dark, dark street,

There was a dark, dark school,

And in that dark, dark school,

There were these dark, dark gates,

And behind those dark, dark gates,

There was a dark, dark door,

And beyond that dark, dark door,

There was a dark, dark corridor,

And down that dark, dark corridor,

There was a dark, dark classroom,

And in that dark, dark classroom,

There was a dark, dark desk,

And in that dark, dark desk,

There was a dark, dark drawer,

And in that dark, dark drawer,

There was a dark, dark box,

And in that dark, dark box,

There was ...

Colin Cooper’s conker which Miss Cawthorne confiscated

Because he was playing with it in class.

(Published in Don’t Tell the Teacher by Gervase Phinn, Puffin)

Here is another example of my repetitive verse for children to perform:

THIS IS THE KEY

This is the key of the school.

In that school there is a classroom.

In that classroom there is a desk.

In that desk there is a drawer.

In that drawer there is a box.

In that box are my sweets.

Which Mrs Davis confiscated yesterday.

Sweets in the box,

Box in the drawer,

Drawer in the desk,

Desk in the room,

Room in the school.

This is the key to the school.

Decisions! Decisions!

(Published in What I Like! Poems for the Very Young by Gervase Phinn, Child’s Play International)

There is a wide variety of action rhymes available in the collections I recommend later on, where children can join in with the teacher with body movements, expressions, hands and fingers. Favourites are: ‘This is the Church and this is the Steeple’, ‘This Little Piggy Went to Market’, ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, ‘Round and Round the Garden’, ‘There’s a Flippy Floppy Scarecrow’, ‘The House that Jack Built’ and ‘Five Little Speckled Frogs’. A board book sure to delight young children and which demands their participation is Annie Kubler’s Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, published in a range of different languages by Mantra Lingua. Children love to hold their heads, shake their shoulders, rub their knees and tickle their toes, singing along with the familiar chorus.

Here is a counting rhyme of my own based on the traditional poem ‘Five Little Owls’:

FIVE LITTLE OWLS

Five little owls in an old oak tree,

Fluffy and puffy as owls could be,

Blinking and winking with big round eyes

At the big round moon that hangs in the skies.

As I passed by I could hear one say,

‘There’ll be mouse for supper, there will, today!’

Then all of them hooted, ‘Tu-whit, tu-whoo,

Yes, mouse for supper, hoo hoo, hoo hoo!’

In my poem ‘Five Fat Conkers’ children hold their fingers downward to represent conkers, leaves, berries, acorns and the boy, and then they wiggle them as they blow on them and drop their hands onto their laps!

FIVE FAT CONKERS

Five fat conkers on the chestnut tree,

Were dangling down for all to see.

Whoosh! came the wind, blowing through the town,

And five fat conkers came tumbling down!

Four green leaves on the sycamore tree,

Were dangling down for all to see.

Whoosh! came the wind, blowing through the town,

And four green leaves came tumbling down!

Three red berries on the rowan tree,

Were dangling down for all to see.