The basis of these starts from 'cultural deficit theory' which assumes that children can't write poems unless you give them poems with gaps in. That's to say, they haven't 'got language' to write poems in. The second assumption is that you can't write poems unless you have 'knowledge' of poems which has an element of truth in it, but this has to be immediately qualified by what it is these courses and activity sheets are dishing up as the 'knowledge'...and how that 'knowledge' is transmitted.
The trainee students sounded quite unhappy by how restricted and controlled it all was.
I'm concerned by that, but also with the idea that educators should assume that the children don't have language and/or culture and that there should be any restriction on what poetry is, in terms of resources, books, collections and so on.
There are other ways of helping children write poems on the basis of eg the languages children bring to the class, the shapes and structures and themes and voices of a wide variety of poems, which we can introduce to children through regular classroom 'slams' or 'shows' put together in a matter of minutes.
We can use freeze frame, hot seating as a way of encouraging children to improvise or write monologues from within characters they already know from the stories/books that teachers are reading with the children. There are many traditional forms like 'call and response' and techniques of repetition and choruses/refrains that can give shape to children's improvised lines 'in between'.
We can ask children to write in the way that adult writers write poems ie wondering if they could write a poem 'like that' ie like the poem they've just read. If we're open and flexible about this, 'like that' can refer to 'like the shape', 'like the pattern', 'like the theme', 'like the tone', 'like the pictures in the poem' or 'like' any other aspect that a child notices about the poem. In fact we can do 'noticing' sessions where we ask children to talk about anything they've 'noticed' about a poem and would they like to have a go. And when we ask that we don't all have to write the same kind of poem! The children can be encouraged to go off where they want or how they want based on what they've 'noticed'.
This takes us into the question of what poetry is for? Is it for exercises? Is it for 'filling in gaps'? Or is there some other purpose?
Broadly speaking, let's remind ourselves poetry is to amuse, entertain, enlighten, intrigue and engage us.
It can do this in many different ways, using selective ways of using language through eg repetition of phrases, sounds, meanings, images (pictures): these include rhyme and rhythms which are of course forms of repetition; through patterns - and there are hundreds of these in terms of verses, rhyme schemes, changes in rhythms; another way is to create 'figurative' language where one 'thing' is like another 'thing' as with metaphor, simile and personification; another way is through 'movement' in which the sense of a poem changes - ie something 'develops' as with poetry about place, person, or feeling and a picture of the place, person and feeling 'grows'; another way is through a 'turn' (or more than one turn) when one part of the poem develops and then something is introduced that counters it with the sensation of 'but'....and many more.
The easiest way for children to discover and use these many different ways is through my 'secret strings' game, which I've described on this blog several times, and in my book: 'What is Poetry?'.
I gather that one of the reasons justifying the use of these 'courses' and 'activity sheets' is that it takes the children through the 'expected levels' which I've written about many times before on account of the fact that they are based on bogus ideas of what grammar is, and that applying these bogus ideas to writing has next to nothing to do with children finding out what good writing is - that's to say, writing that can move us, entertain us, intrigue us and perhaps ultimately teach us things about ourselves or the world we live in.
