Finding a voice? Do literary forms work creatively in teaching poetry writing?

Abstract

The linguistic demands of poetry writing, quite apart from the transcriptional aspects of writing, make this perhaps the most challenging form of writing children encounter in school. These would include, among others, poetic techniques such as using line breaks and chunking meaning in stanzas; invention and handling of imagery; playfulness and ambition in vocabulary. In this paper I want to examine some of the linguistic and cognitive demands which writing poems makes on children. I will analyse these using Sharples' model of thinking about writing, specifically his description of 'rhetorical and content modes'; and I will argue that poetry writing makes unique demands upon children in both of these modes. I will critically examine how the content and rhetorical modes can be expanded through the use of published poems as literary forms, and will discuss the potentials and pitfalls of this approach.

Poetic Language, Interdiscursivity and Intertextuality in Fifth Graders’ Poetry

“…In particular, features such as repetition, rhyme, and metaphor are ones which, according to Cazden (1976) and Tannen (2007), children have an affinity for in their language play. It is not surprising, then, that these features were sometimes found in the poems of children in school (e.g., Kamberelis, 1999;Schnoor, 2004;Steinbergh, 1999;Wilson, 2007), with more demonstration, particularly of metaphor, in studies of older elementary students (Steinbergh, 1999;Wilson, 2007). In a comprehensive study of primary children's multigenre writing, Kamberelis (1999) found that a few of the 54 first-through thirdgrade children wrote sophisticated poems, rich with imagery and metaphor, from a prompt to "write about an animal," but that most children wrote poems that tended to depend too heavily on rhyme and singsong meter patterns.…”

“…For example, Wilson (2007) found that elementary children in the United Kingdom tended "to adapt the shape and words of the poems used as models" (p. 448) and were likely to "replicate" phrases from a teacher-presented model poem (p. 450). Besides mentor texts, poet-mentors themselves have been found to influence children's poetry.…”

“…Moreover, only a few studies have demonstrated links between children's poetic language use and their tendency to borrow poetry from other texts and voices (Christianakis, 2011;Dyson, 1997Dyson, , 2003Wilson, 2007), specifically that children shape their poems from "literary models" presented by the teacher (Wilson, 2007). However, there is a dearth of research that attempts to trace the wide range of children's complex interdiscursive and intertextual poetry writing practices, in spite of the usefulness of these practices as scaffolds for writing (Kamberelis & de la Luna, 2004).…”

Packaging poetry? Pupils’ perspectives of their learning experience within the post‐primary poetry classroom

“…As a result, there exists a relative silence in the promotion of arts‐based subjects in education (Arts Council 2008). Therefore, as rigid accountability mechanisms force the narrowing of curricula, the fortitude of arts based subjects, such as poetry to withstand standardisation and reductionist patterns is arguably lessening (Pike 2004; Wilson 2007).…”

Ortaokul Öğrencilerinin Şiir Çözümleme Becerilerinin ve Tutumlarının Geliştirilmesi ile İlgili Öğretmen Görüşlerinin İncelenmesi

“…Söz gelimi şiir ile öğrencilerin söz varlığı zenginleştirilebilir, çünkü şiirde kullanılan her kelime bir seçimin sonucudur, aynı zamanda şiirdeki her kelimenin farklı çağrışımları veya yan anlamları vardır. Diğer yandan şiir aracılığıyla öğrencilerin dinleme, özellikle de konuşma ve yazma gibi temel dil becerileri geliştirilebilir (Erdal, 2013, s. 179;Yardımcı ve Tuncer, 2002, s. 188;Arıcı ve Ungan, 2011, s. 259;Baş, 2015, s. 35;Göçer, 2010, s. 350 Ducharme (1968); Esbensen (1975); Snider (1975); Benton (1984); Collom (1985); Smith (1985); Wade ve Sidaway (1990); Bizzaro (1993); Somers (1999); Ray (1999); Benton (1999); Benton (2000); Elster ve Hanauer (2002); Cahnmann (2003); Hunley (2007); Sekeres (2007); Wilson (2007); Cumming (2007); Gordon (2008); Myhill ve Wilson (2012) ve Wilson (2013)…”