Writing Poetry With Kids: What a Great Way to Create a Love of Words

You can do it in school or with your kids at home

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

I do lots of writing workshops in schools. Mostly I’m asked to work with kids on writing stories, but what I really want to do is poetry!

There are lots of reasons for this. Firstly, I’m often only given an hour. An hour is not long enough for anyone to write a story, especially if we start with some tips and guidance. Mostly all we get done is the beginning, and when the end is usually the hardest part for kids to grapple with, the session always feels unfinished.

With poetry, everyone gets to write at least one poem. So there’s a sense of completion and success for the kids, something to show and read and share.

And with poetry, ALL of the kids in the class write something. I find with story writing, around a third of the kids struggle to even get started. They spend all their time trying to find an idea (“What I Did on my Holidays” is not a good idea!).

Poetry is so darned democratic. It never fails to surprise the class teacher when the students they think of as the least able are very often the ones that come up with the best poems. Best as in free, bright, energetic and fun. The top students regularly try too hard, and poetry doesn’t much…