I have recently discovered that some teachers feel uncomfortable teaching poetry. This surprised me and I have been trying to understand why. I feel I have understood some of the stumbling-blocks, but please send me a comment if you feel you could explain this further.
It seems to me (admittedly not a teacher) that poetry is well suited to classroom time restrictions. Poems are generally short. No teacher need be a poet any more than a teacher need be a novelist or a master of the short-story. There is a vast variety of poetry out there, yet the perception of what constitutes poetry is very limited. Personally, I feel that poetry is a very user-friendly medium which adapts itself to a wide selection of teaching and learning styles.
Perhaps it would be useful to experiment with purely enjoyable poetry play before embarking upon a more serious theme such as bullying. Perhaps teachers and students alike might find themselves pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this medium can be…and how useful. I would like to suggest a few ice-breaker type activities which could potentially lead into a more intense poetry exercice:
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Fill-in-the-blank type poetry done in pairs. Compose a poem or use a well-known poem. Substitute words with their parts of speech. (nouns, adverbs, adjectives, etc.) Have one partner ask for examples of each part of speech and substitute the other partner’s responses into the poem. Read the poems aloud to the class afterwards. Example: (proper name) and Jill went up the (geographical location) to (verb) a pail of (liquid noun). Jack fell (adjective of direction) and broke his (anatomical part) and (proper name ) came (verb-ing) after. Sample result: Tom Cruise and Jill went up the canyon to splatter a pail of acid rain. Jack fell sideways and broke his funny-bone and Madonna came jogging after. Encourage outrageous responses.
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Start a traveling poem around the classroom. Establish a rhythm and rhyme pattern and let the students jump in and collaborate as they feel inspired to do so. Write it down as they brainstorm.
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Use a familiar song, rap-tune, chant, nursery rhyme to start a poem. Let the kids pursue it further to entirely change the outcome. When stalled ask questions of where, why, when, who, etc.
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Display a series of silhouette drawings of recognizable objects, people or events. Allow the kids to wander around and fill in the empty space with their comments/poetry.
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Offer a variety of percussion instruments (or have the children make their own) and encourage them to follow your rhythm while you read a poem. They could write their own and accompany it with their instrument afterwards.
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Assign roles, establish a theme and let groups of two create and enact their own poem.
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Play a word-association game. Eyes-closed, name a word and have the students free-associate words or thoughts.
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Always have a magnetic poetry board at their disposition.
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Use other media to illustrate a chosen poem. (cartoon drawing, musical composition, mime, sign language, puppet show, animation,second language translation…)
After having explored some of these warm-up activities, young minds and teachers alike will perhaps feel primed to explore more threatening issues and use poetry to work through them. That is my hope.
