Creative Approaches to Poetry for the Primary Framework for Literacy

Jan Foale, Linda Pagett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135246624
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

Creative Approaches to Poetry for the Primary Framework for Literacy supports teachers in planning, teaching and, most importantly, enjoying poetry with their pupils. With an emphasis on creative, cross curricular approaches the authors explore tried and tested methods of teaching poetry in an engaging and comprehensive manner. A carefully considered range of poems has been included in order to expand children's repertoires in a variety of poetic forms.

Chapters cover:

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• how to develop a range of creative approaches to teaching poetry, involving visualisation, drama, choral speaking, performance, discussion and writing
• how to engage children from a variety of backgrounds and abilities in experiencing poetry in its many forms
• integrating the teaching of poetry with all other areas of the curriculum including ICT and citizenship
• effectively linking all work to the KS1 poetry units of the renewed Primary National Framework for Literacy
• an innovative model that takes children on a journey beginning before they meet the poem through to becoming poets themselves.

This accessible and user-friendly book includes informative case studies, photographs and children's work to demonstrate alternative routes to working with poetry. It will prove an invaluable resource for all primary teachers seeking to employ progressive and effective strategies in the teaching of poetry.

CHAPTER 1
Poetry, young learners and the curriculum

The Poetry Club

Poetry is important. Some people know this: poets, musicians, songwriters, people who invent advertising jingles are all in the Poetry Club. Harry is a member too. He sits in bed with his parents singing: ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly …’ He is only two but like many young children he is beginning to pick up the rhythm of nursery rhymes and even to manipulate rhyme himself: he calls his younger sister ‘Liz the Fizz’. The Club encompasses everyone who enjoys listening to poetry. Some people, like Harry, get membership early because they have people to help them: people who introduce them to a wonderful world, where language is easy to memorise, where phrases stay with them in a way that prose may not. Harry remembers the phrase ‘fearful earful’, which describes the sound of elephants trumpeting, from his story book. He laughs when he says it. As his understanding increases he may use it as a phrase to describe any loud noise, thus enriching his own use of language. Some members of the Club enjoy writing poetry but these are few and far between. There are some closet members who may write poetry to help them to understand life a little better, but how many adults admit to this?

Sadly, not everyone joins the Club. Some people just don’t experience enough poetry; others are actually rather scared, thinking it difficult to understand and write. Some of these people may be teachers, and this is really quite serious. Kelly argues that historically, ‘some children enjoyed their teacher’s passion for poetry, while others were at the mercy of their teacher’s indifference’ (2005:129). She analyses contemporary children’s views about poetry and finds that, ‘despite their years of poetry teaching, these children still indicate that poetry and poets inhabit a privileged place where they do not belong’ (2005:132). This is a challenge to the most dedicated of teachers and underlines the difficulties in keeping up your Club subscription.

How do we join?

Membership depends upon what Frank Smith (1971) famously called the company we keep. Harry’s Mum sings with him and takes him to a music club where parents and children sing together, march up and down and dance as only two year olds can. The children in the music class need others around them to stay enthusiastic about poetry and to continue to create contexts in which they can respond. They are lucky. Others may need to wait until they get to school before they are introduced to poetry. There they may learn from their peers, for example, chanting and clapping together in the playground, and hopefully from teachers who are enthusiastic about poetry, weaving it into the fabric of the school day. There will, of course, be reluctant members; perhaps children who feel themselves to be poor readers and writers and so unable to access poetic form for themselves; perhaps clever children who are expected to analyse and comb through poems exhaustively in the name of ‘comprehension’. Poems themselves can convert you into a Club member, catching you unaware, creeping into your memory, perhaps making you wonder. Ted Hughes claims that poems ‘have a certain wisdom. They know something special’ (Hughes, 1967:15). It is perhaps this wisdom that makes it so important for young children to be switched onto poetry.

How teachers can help

Teachers themselves need to be in the Club. This is not an automatic attribute of being a teacher. I recently asked a group of PGCE students about their attitudes to teaching poetry. Their comments varied from the dramatic ‘complete dread’ through ‘nervous and a bit embarrassed’ to ‘enthusiastic’. One comment was particularly telling: ‘Before school experience complete dread! Now I can’t wait till the next opportunity.’ Working with children and poetry can be a catalyst for change, empowering both teachers and pupils.

However, teachers may need to ‘find a friend’ in order to help them. This may be an alliance with a colleague interested in other art forms: dance or drama, for example. Balaam and Merrick (1987) report inspiring case studies into how children can use various art forms in order to explore and enjoy poems. Research undertaken by Medwell et al. (1998) has shown that the most effective teachers of literacy have an extensive knowledge of children’s literature, so having colleagues who are constantly sharing and comparing poems to teach children is important.

How the curriculum helps

The Education Act of 1986 heralded the arrival of a National Curriculum for English. It came with a requirement for all pupils to be given opportunities to speak aloud, listen to and discuss poetry, to read a range of poems and to write their own. The commitment to poetry remained in the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) (DfES, 1998) and the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (DfEE, 2000). Unfortunately, documentation that stipulates an entitlement to poetry is no guarantee of effective teaching or learning. Why is this so? Perhaps the answer lies in pedagogy.

With the NLS came the literacy hour, which prescribed shared, guided and independent work within a sixty minute lesson. Poems provided concise texts well-suited to analysis at word and sentence level. Poetry found a place in the hour but perhaps lost its connection to the wider curriculum; the power of poetry was sometimes diminished, and as a result some poetry enthusiasts lost their way.

However, the Primary National Strategy (DfES, 2003), with its clear mandate to excellence and enjoyment, has provided teachers with the timely encouragement to be creative and innovative in their interpretation of the curriculum. Teachers are invited to use their professional judgement and knowledge of children to make choices about how best to serve their pupils’ needs. In the case of poetry this may mean more variety. Free from the restraints of the literacy hour, poetry can be explored via pen and paint, music and mime, dance and drama, performance and presentation – and it can be linked to the wider curriculum.

Early learning goals included in Early Years Foundation Stage Communication Language and Literacy (DfES, 2007) underline the importance of poetry for young children. The learning goals include ‘listen with enjoyment and respond to … rhymes and poems and make up their own’ (2007:13) and ‘enjoy listening to and using spoken and written language and readily turn to it in their play’ (2007:13).

The Primary Framework for Literacy (DfES, 2006) draws upon the National Literacy Strategy and Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage. The following KS 1 models for planning taken from the Primary Framework underline the significance of poetry alongside narrative and non-fiction. Furthermore, the Framework suggests that the units of work extend over a period of one to two weeks, enabling connections to be explored progressively. Each unit has a suggested theme. Themes have been chosen to provide variety in terms of the types of poetry and subject matter likely to motivate young learners. This book is designed to support teachers who are working within and beyond these suggested models.

A sequence for progression

If we are serious about the quality of pupils’ learning, we need to think carefully about progression. The five stage sequence below – paving the way; meeting the poem; presenting and performing; reflecting, reading and writing around the poem and becoming a poet – is a suggested approach that can be used alongside the Primary Framework for Literacy. Teachers may choose to follow the whole sequence or simply focus on particular stages such as presenting and performing.

Year 1 Poetry
Narrative 16–17 weeks	UNIT 1 Stories with familiar settings (4 weeks or 2 × 2 weeks)	UNIT 2 Stories from a range of cultures/stories with predictable and patterned language (4 weeks or 2 × 2 weeks)		UNIT 3 Traditional and fairy tales (includes plays) (4–5 weeks or 2–3 + 2 weeks)	UNIT 4 Stories about fantasy worlds (4 weeks or 2 × 2 weeks)
Nonfiction 12 weeks	UNIT 1 Labels, lists and captions (1 week)	UNIT 2 Instructions (2 weeks)	UNIT 3 Recounts, dictionary (2 weeks)	UNIT 4 Information texts (5 weeks)	UNIT 4 Information texts (5 weeks)
Poetry 6 weeks	UNIT 1 Using the senses* (2 weeks)		UNIT 2 Pattern and rhyme (2 weeks)		UNIT 3 Poems on a theme (2 weeks)

Figure 1.1 Year 1 Poetry.

Source: Department for Children, Schools and Families. Reproduced under the terms of the Click Use License.

Year 2 Poetry
Narrative 14 weeks	UNIT 1 Stories with familiar settings (4 weeks)	UNIT 2 Traditional stories (4 weeks)	UNIT 3 Different stories by the same author (3 weeks)	UNIT 4 Extended stories/ Significant authors (3 weeks)
Non-fiction 15 weeks	UNIT 1 Instructions (4 weeks)	UNIT 2 Explanations (3 weeks)	UNIT 3 Information texts (4 weeks)	UNIT 4 Non-chronological rep...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Poetry, young learners and the curriculum
• 2 Poetry in the Foundation Stage
• 3 Using the senses
• 4 Pattern and rhyme
• 5 Poems on a theme
• 6 Patterns on the page
• 7 Really looking
• 8 Silly stuff
• 9 Key questions
• Glossary
• References