Poetry is something which was very much ruined for me in Secondary School. Picking them apart line by line took away the enjoyment and the excitement. However, before the preparation for Standard Grades and Highers, when I was back in Primary School I really enjoyed poetry.

Every year we spent time looking at Scots Poems and I enjoyed getting dressed up in something tartan and competing against the rest of the class to see who could perform their poem the best. The poems selected were usually rhymed and were funny and we’d all learn actions to go with our performances. That being said I don’t remember looking at any other types of poetry throughout my time at Primary School (other than acrostic poems of course).

Up until our recent poetry inputs the only poetry reading and writing I had done since my Highers was spending time creating rude and silly limericks with my nieces and nephews! This being said I found it quite simple to put together a rhyming poem for our TDT. I chose to write about my time at primary school:

Heinemann and repetition

Copy down what Teachers written

Sitting in our cold hard chairs

Looking on with vacant stares.

 

We Memorised what we were taught

We didn’t cheat or we’d get caught

Five minutes off your Golden-time

Punishment don’t fit the crime!

 

Seven years of learning on

All those facts and figures gone

Just to start again next year

To be filled a fresh with facts

                And Fear.

Within the second poetry input we looked at various types of poetry, some of which I had never heard of before including Mesostic Poems. My group wrote a lovely one about Winter:

We also looked at list poems and were invited to have a go at writing one about a type of food. I wrote one of my own all about apples:

Red apples, green apples

Scarred and lumpy crab apples.

Glossy apples, royal apples

Basic Granny Smiths.

 

Pureed apples, stewed apples

Dipped in sticky toffee apples.

Chopped apples, peeled apples

Apples are so great!

Writing my own poems within a workshop really highlighted the need to provide classes with warm up activities prior to poetry writing as well as a stimulus to inspire them to get creative. Following these lectures I definitely feel more confident about teaching poetry whilst out on placement as I have a much broader catalogue of ideas to work with.