Kate Williams

Reluctant or hesitant creative writers in your class?

No worries! There are umpteen ways to get them going. Poetry – a word some children dread and fear – can actually be a great way to melt tension and set pens flowing. A poem can be short or long, funny or serious, beautiful, crazy, cheeky, spooky… It doesn’t have to rhyme, but it can. Poetry has no set rules: even a given format, such as haiku, limerick, or sonnet, can be used as a launch pad for individual styles – resulting in who knows what?!

Messy presentation allowed!

What’s more, the flexibility of poetry means that it’s actually better to allow mess – crossed out words, others squeezed in above or below, spelling mistakes too, to allow for flow of ideas and creative expression. What fun! No tidiness rules (until writing out in neat, if doing so). A poem can be a shared task, too, perhaps with a partner or with contributions around the table. Once you’ve got a few lines sorted, you can set them to music or act them out, or turn them into a riddle, to be guessed by the rest. More ideas can be found in my Guardian piece (from 8 years ago, but still just as relevant).

So here’s a link to my article offering 10 tips for whisking away the fear or boredom of a poetry-writing session, published originally in The Guardian’s online Education section:


https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/apr/27/10-top-tips-help-primary-pupils-write-poetry-poem


Picture below: being dragons with a Y3/4 class. The poetry they produced afterwards was amazing, their teacher reported.

Have fun – and watch those reluctant writers light up!…

Oh dear! Now they won’t STOP writing – they’re missing their playtime – by choice! 🤣 This is honestly what happens in my workshops, so often – those who dreaded the challenge at the start, or leant back nonchalantly on their chairs, can’t tear themselves away from their sheet of writing at the end. Even then, they tend to throw ideas at me as they pass, from the flow bubbling up in their minds, sometimes funny ones from our end of session crazy word game, sometimes thoughtful or dramatic ones inspired by the content and class contributions of those 60 minutes.

So don’t don’t despair over a child’s writing reluctance!

Kate…

…By the way, have you ordered your copy of my new collection – Squeak! Squawk! Roar! – yet????? Just asking for a mouse.😉