Rhyme and Reason – How Poetry can be Used to Engage your Reluctant Writers
Despite its often intimidating reputation, poetry can be a powerful tool with which engage your students' enthusiasm, creativity and imagination, argues Fay Lant
- by Fay Lant
It was about this time two years ago that I was beginning to despair of my bottom set Year 9 class. One student in particular was clearly very bright, but it was imperative to his social standing that he not appear intelligent or achieve highly in any of his subjects.
One lunch time, I noticed him and his brother focusing intently on learning and repeating some lyrics. When I asked him about it later, I was told with a shrug that they had been “spitting bars” – in other words, reciting poetry. That January, I announced to the class that we would be entering into a ‘poetry battle’ against the top set, and that everyone would participate in some way.
My disengaged student was henceforth able to engage in lessons, taking on the role of an expert on rhyme and rhythm, and ultimately leading our set to victory – with a sonnet about an umbrella.
It was during that term that I discovered three things about poetry, along with my class:
1. It’s fun (though few would publicly admit to it)
Playing with language, and the freedom of knowing there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, is liberating for students who might otherwise feel intimidated when presented with a writing task.
2. It’s flexible
Poetry is flexible both in terms of the many forms it can take (including poetry for performance, lyrics and rap) and the infinite possibilities for subject matter. Poetry can be used to explore any topic, from subjects and issues close to the students’ hearts, to the most banal objects of classroom detritus – such as my umbrella.
3. It gives us a voice
Poetry gives young people an opportunity to express themselves and their emotions in a way that they may not always feel able to do.
Fundamentally, writing poetry is the process of selecting the words which most effectively communicate meaning. This is invaluable in developing students’ writing skills more generally, especially those who struggle with literacy, have EAL or SEN. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, given that playing with rhythm, rhyme and the sound of words is the way we develop language and communication skills when we are very young.
Picture this
In fact, despite the culture of fear surrounding poetry for many adults, National Literacy Trust research shows that the number of young people reading and writing poems outside class has increased every year since 2010. Perhaps more surprising is the finding that children receiving free school meals are significantly more likely to engage with poetry than their peers.
However, the key motivators are still interest and enjoyment. That means that finding an inspiring stimulus is absolutely critical. Imagine how much more powerful the learning experience in my above anecdote might have been had my student’s poem had been based on a true story of unrequited love, the destructive impact of war or an inspirational character. Sometimes an umbrella just doesn’t cut it.
Over the last few years, the National Literacy Trust has explored working with cultural stimuli to improve writing. Most recently, we worked in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, Apples and Snakes and galleries across England to deliver a schools programme linked to the Picture the Poet exhibition.
We used this touring exhibition of portraits of living poets to encourage students to explore the poets’ work, and respond to the images with their own writing. 88% of pupils say they now know more about poetry and 57% feel that their writing has improved, as a result of the experience.
Exhibit A
If you’re planning an educational visit to a museum or gallery, why not use poetry as a means of engaging with the exhibition and improving literacy? Here are some suggestions for activities during the visit which can be used to develop poems back in the classroom:
- Ask the students to collect words they find interesting from around the gallery and create a word cloud from them.
- Take one collection item and ask the students to make up a story set around the item when it was originally created or used.
- Use drama to bring a painting to life and explore the characters presented within it.
- Ask the students to experiment with different forms of writing, in order to familiarise themselves with an item – ie penning a ‘how to’ guide for using a historical artefact, or what an advert for it might have looked like.
- Describe an item using each of the senses and experiment with different synonyms.
Other positive outcomes from the Picture the Poet project included teacher reports of increased confidence and self-esteem in their students. Perhaps most strikingly, for two in five of the pupils involved, it was the first time they had visited a gallery at all. For those students, they were able to both experience a whole new world, and find the words to explore it.
Fay Lant works for the National Literacy Trust as a project manager on their Cultural Writers Programme; prior to this, she was an English teacher at a secondary school in south London
You can find more information about the National Literacy Trust’s current work with cultural organisations by visiting literacytrust.org.uk/cultural_writers or following @Literacy_Trust.
