In this, the month of love, may our hearts turn towards the appreciation and care of one another and may our words turn to poetry, the language of love and, in Edgar Allen Poe’s opinion, the “language of the soul”.

Writing poetry with elementary school students can be a… difficult task to say the least. There tends to be a perception of poetry as very rigid and rule-based which immediately causes students to groan, turn up their noses, and walk away. To be fair to them, many forms of poetry as taught to young students are kind of stodgy and unappealing; things like acrostics and haikus, while pretty in their own way, can choke the life out of creativity in someone with an already waning interest in writing and language. “You’re telling me I have to pay attention to syllables now on top of everything else?” And, of course, poetry assignments often have a set topic or theme, one that might not interest students who want to talk about Tonka trucks or Lil Nas X or lightsabers or the fight they most recently had with their sibling. In my experience, I’ve found a couple of strategies work really well with students learning poetry, dyslexic or not:

1) Let the student be creative at all costs.

Don’t begrudge students the chance to talk about any topic they want (within reason, of course); poetry is the language of the soul and the soul wants to express, often in confusing, contradictory, and trifling ways. If a child wants to write a poem about the baby they made out of Hey Clay, let them at it. If they want to write about a spaghetti-haired monster, go right ahead. And if they want to break form, adding in ten syllables instead of six or messing with a rhyme scheme, don’t begrudge them this. Poetry is about rule-breaking. It’s rebel language. So, let the kids be rebels!

2) Make poetry a celebration.

After a strenuous poetry writing session, I always take time to celebrate student work. Students may be hesitant to share their work in public at first, at least by themselves, but offering to read their work for them or post it publicly allows them to share without the pressure of public speaking. I encourage other students to talk about how each other’s poems make them feel and especially what struck or moved them about each individual piece; was there a particular image? A phrase? Even a word? Also, I usually reward particularly skillful or thoughtful poems with a special treat (my candy jar is always full). We turn it into a game or competition. Like I said above, poetry breaks rules of language, of punctuation, of grammar; it’s all about feeling and imagery and fun.

And that’s it! There’s not much more to poetry time except to encourage kids to run wild with their imagination and have fun in the process. One game I’ve found particularly effective to inspire kids to write is Paint Chip Poetry, a game produced by poet Lea Redmond (who has many other fabulous products on her website, https://leafcutterdesigns.com/). Paint Chip Poetry is a very simple game, made with interpretive prompts and a whole bunch of paint chips (think Home Depot-style). With the creative colour names on the cards, students can use the provided words to craft truly gorgeous and creative poetry. It’s also great for teaching vocabulary and idioms (my students can all tell you exactly what a zephyr and ginseng are now). I was actually shocked by how much they love the process as well! I have students begging for the opportunity to pore over the paint chips, carefully select their colours and actually write! It’s been an amazing boon to our classroom activities and to my students’ attitudes towards writing as well.