Poetry and stories for primary and lower secondary schools 1.

The starting point for poetry in primary schools must be poems. That's to say, not a worksheet, not a writing exercise but a pile of poems, a set of poems, a cornucopia of poems.

The first job is for the children to see that poems can become theirs, that poets wrote poems for the likes of them, that poems belong to them.

How can we best do that?

Poems have to become part of the classroom, part of school life and poems are things that children can browse and find for themselves; poems are things that are on walls, in books that are accessible at all times; poems can be heard, shouted, whispered, sung, given accompaniments with drawings, pictures on powerpoint, music, mime, film, whatever.

One simple place to start is to come in one day and say that in 20 minutes time we're going to have a poetry show. You distribute piles of poetry books on the children's tables. You invite the children to go into pairs and choose a poem per pair. You ask them to prepare a poem per pair for the poetry show that you're going to have in 20 minutes time. You tell them that they can perform the poem in anyway they like: taking turns, saying it together, singing some of it or all of it, tapping out a rhythm, miming it, making noises to go with it - leaving out words or lines for the rest of the class to guess...etc etc.

20 minutes later, you hold the poetry show. For this first one, you m.c. the show making a big deal of it, making sure that everyone is ready and quite to hear each performance and giving each one applause.

At the end of the show of approx fifteen performances, you invite the children in their pairs to consider what aspects of each other's performances would they consider trying out for the next poetry show. This is a positive way to do criticism and builds the idea that you are a team trying to help each other get better and better at poetry together. If there was something you noticed that no one mentions you can chip in with. If there's something that you think might be worth trying e.g. making the sound of sea 'behind' a performance, you suggest that too. 

A day later, or a two days later, or three days later or a week later you do the same again. Whatever interval you set up, you repeat, so there is an expectation for this activity to happen again and again. This is very important.

You keep this going for as long as there is enthusiasm. 

You can vary the format by e.g. you and a child having a go. Involve the TAs. Widen the choice of poems. Let the children go back to favourites. Try using powerpoint, try making 'shoe boxes' to represent poems. Try doing paintings. If you're used to one of the animation apps, try that. 

What is all this about?

This is not only about helping a class 'possess' poems, it is giving them a 'repertoire'. Each time you do the 'show', you might be covering 15 poems. You're building up many ways of how poems work. You're enabling the children to have poems in their minds, bodies and voices.  

I can promise you that they will become enthusiastic about poetry because you're showing that you believe in poems and you believe in them. The point here is that poems are doing the work, and that's because poems have 'hooks'. Poets are people who write poems so that they 'stick' to readers and listeners: whether that's rhyme, rhythm, imagery, shape, repetition or whatever, each line of a poem holds within it the efforts of a poet to grab the attention of a reader or listener. These hooks are the most cogent argument for poetry - not commentary, not worksheets, but the poem itself.

Don't necessarily expect dramatic results immediately. Give it two or three sessions for the pattern to develop of performance/discussion/learning from each other/performance to take hold. 

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Alongside this, it's worth thinking about what else you can do to make a poetry-friendly classroom.
A bookshelf or bookcase of poetry books. 
You could try writing out a poem a week on a huge bit of paper. 
Invite the children to put post-its on and around the poem with comments and questions. On the day you're going to change the poem to a new one (a week later?) collect up the post-its and get the children to talk about them e.g. handing them out to pairs, followed by a plenary. If there are questions, discuss how best to answer them. 
Watch or listen to poets performing their poems on CD, video, online or wherever. 
Get poets to come to school.
Organise a poetry cabaret evening involving parents and grandparents. Make sure that it only lasts about half an hour interspersed with music, dance and perhaps an art show. 
Invite the children to make their own personal poetry anthologies. Give them each a nice notebook and tell them they can copy out any poem, part of a poem, song, part of a song, or any 'line' from something they hear on TV or on the radio that sounds interesting or caught their imagination - perhaps from a film. You do the same and show them your anthology and where you're collecting your poems and parts of poems and sayings from. This 'models' making an anthology. 


Poetry in Primary Schools 2 will be about what happens if someone comes into  your room and says, 'How can you justify spending time on this stuff?' 

Poetry in Primary Schools 3 will be about interesting and exciting ways of reading poems in a critical way suitable for primary schools.

Poetry in Primary Schools 4 will be about interesting and exciting ways of writing poems. 

These pages are all inter-connected. However your base is in reading poems together and sharing poems in a poetry-friendly classroom. It's here that poems do the 'work' for you. They will engender the enthusiasm and excitement you need. 

(Most of these ideas and many more are in 'What is Poetry? An Essential Guide to Reading and Writing Poetry' published by Walker Books. In that book, I have a section on some poems I've written and how I came to write them. 

Media does Groundhog Day with old, white depressed men in industrial decline zones.

How many programmes have you watched where depressed and saddened men in their late 50s or older are sitting in a half-empty pub saying that the area round here used to be a flourishing industrial place and then following that up with the observation that Labour have deserted them? (or in the US, the Democrats)?

It's clearly 'true' in the sense that this is what some real people are feeling and saying. However, it fascinates me why the TV always seems to show this as a story about how these men's views end up with them levelling the blame at the party that appears to have deserted them even though a good deal of the reason why their world has crashed is to do with the 'other side' just as much, if not more ie the Tories and/or the Republicans? 

Maybe it's the perceived betrayal by Labour/Democrats that hurts most. In which case, why vote for the other lot instead - if that's what's happening in, say, Sunderland or Hartlepool or Pennsylvania? 

 We shall see if that really is the case in the UK or just a media confection.


Meanwhile, the TV programmes of course can't propose any alternative, on account of their own brief. (This is an example of how the media create the 'field' of the discussion and can't break out of it.)

So, for example, under a capitalist system, where there is poverty, which then creates bad housing, capitalism ('the market') can't swing round, change tack, employ and pay people to improve that housing, even though that this is the need. Unless there is state or local government investment for need, the system can only create these pools of poverty and loss.

We are left, then, with news item after news item after news item of old, sad men in empty pubs saying that they won't vote Labour/Democrat. 

Grammar: 'No smoking' or 'Don't smoke!'? And other questions.

Anyone going through the requirements of the primary school grammar test (GPS) will have come across something that strikes quite a few people as odd: commands and exclamations.

It seems odd because what's going on here is that grammarians have classified how we speak and write according to what they think are grammatical systems. These systems juggle grammatical 'rules'  (e.g. a singular subject should determine the singular form of the verb as in 'The cat eats...' ) with structure (e.g. to ask a question in English, we hardly ever 'invert' a main verb anymore: we don't usually say, 'Go I to the pub?') with meaning: (e.g. I can only call 'very' an adverb in the phrase 'very good spaghetti' because I know what 'very' means) with function (e.g. the auxiliary verb 'have' in 'I have eaten the banana' is serving the function of indicating a way of talking about an event that has happened.)

So 'grammar' juggles with rules, structures, meaning and function.

When the GPS first appeared, many people were surprised that suddenly out of the blue there were only two 'allowed' way to exclaim: in structures following 'what' and 'how'; and there was only one 'allowed' way to command: in structures using the 'imperative' form of verbs: as in 'Go to bed!', 'Stop running! and the like.

What's going on here is that 'grammar' (as defined by GPS) lays a matrix over language, chops language up in certain ways and says that only specific kinds of structures or rules can fit the term that 'grammar' has devised. In real life, we know full well that we can 'exclaim' and 'command' in many different ways. We can use exclamation marks in all sorts of ways too. You only have to read fiction, poetry and look at ads to see that.

Now let's consider this way of looking at language in relation to 10/11 year olds children reading and writing. What do we want them to do? Understand and enjoy what they're reading; write and talk in lots of different ways, for different purposes; to know that language is owned, created and changed by all of us. It doesn't belong to a small group of people who 'know best'. Unlike, private swimming pools, we can all access great uses of language for free,  simply by reading or listening to it in schools, libraries, online and so on. What's more we can make it our own by imitating it and adapting it. Some terms to describe what we're doing are very helpful - so long as they don't become the reason why we're doing it.

Back to commands and exclamations: I would argue that these are indeed fascinating parts of our repertoire of language. We all use them and use them often. However, the ways we do it differ and vary and each kind has 'nuance' - subtle differences of meaning, tone, function and intention.

So, rather than laying a grammarian's matrix over command and exclaim, I would suggest we collect up as many ways we can think of, of commanding and exclaiming, examine the differences in meaning, tone, function and intention.

When we've done that, aren't we just that bit better at knowing how and why someone is saying/writing these things to me, and I'm much better at making choices about saying/writing these things?

Here's an example:

I mentioned 'No smoking' in the previous blog. It's a very odd construction. In theory, it's a phrase you could use outside of its usual context where it's a mixture of an instruction and an order.

"I went into the dole office and it was free of cigarettes. No smoking. None at all.'

That's a common way of writing available to us from at least since Dickens' time.

So how do we know that 'No smoking' in a train, means something like, 'You can't smoke here' or 'There must be no smoking here' or 'Smoking is not allowed here'? We know from several contexts: we've seen it many times before and had it explained to us; the sign saying 'No smoking' is nearly always in the same places and looks similar; we know that 'smoking' and 'no smoking' is a big deal in public places...and so on. We use the contexts to tell us it is in its own way a command.

But why doesn't it say, 'Don't smoke!' - the 'command' as determined by GPS. Does 'Don't smoke!' mean the same thing as 'No smoking'? If so, how?

So, if I use a particular kind of grammar will I help create a particular kind of meaning, a particular kind of response from people hearing or reading what I say/write?  And how does context work in this situation? Is it an invisible 'grammar' which traditional grammar can't see, hear or describe and yet it crucial to how we communicate to each other about smoking in public places? 

A few notes on what teaching grammar to 9-11 year olds could be like (in my dreams!)

Grammar.

What could a reasonable, helpful grammar course in Key Stage 2 look like - if it wasn't dominated by a test that was introduced for the sole purpose of measuring teacher performance? The GPS (formerly SPaG)  was introduced on the mistaken and incorrect basis that 'grammar, punctuation and spelling' have 'right/wrong' answers in the Bew Report in 2011 without a word of evidence. 

1. What is grammar?

This question is complicated by the fact that we use the word  'grammar' in two different ways: 

a) the way a language is structured and  the way it functions.

b) the terms we use to describe these structures and functions.

Because people are so used to talking about some specific terms (noun, verb, subordinate clause etc), it's easy to think that this 'is' grammar. It isn't. It's just the terms that many people have devised. We see the complication this gives us when those who make up the terms ('grammarians') argue with each other.

Here's an example. 

'After the ball, everyone went to the pub.'

'After the ball was over, everyone went to the pub.'

How should we describe the word 'after'?

If you use terms to describe English with exactly the same terms you would use to describe Latin, then in the first sentence, 'after' is a 'preposition'. In the second example, 'after' is a 'subordinate conjunction'. 

If you use terms which, you think are based at least in part on 'meaning' then you will have to come up with a single term which is the same for both. Some grammarians do this. 

Just to be clear, I'm agnostic on this matter. I'm just observing that grammarians disagree on what to call this word. This shows us that terminology is not the same as grammar. 

2. Behaviour

If I was helping to devise a course in grammar,  I would start with trying to convey the idea that language is a part of human behaviour. It is not a self-enclosed, sealed up system that can be talked about solely as if it is simply or only a kind of code. People use language for different reasons. So, the starting point for me is to explore how, where and why do we use language. We could look at the 'edges' of language where we use gesture, noises, signals, signs and the like to communicate ideas and feelings. We could look at the fact we use language across a huge range of situations: drama, film, chat, instructions, song, poetry, ads, computers, texts, emails. In this range of situations, we use language to convey feeling, to exchange ideas, to 'talk to myself', to make rules, to lie, to deceive...and for many other reasons - what reasons?  

3. Good use of language, good writing, etc. 

Whatever shapes we use when we make language, we use them because they are part of these different kinds of behaviour. There is no such thing as 'good language' per se. 'Good' depends on situation, context, and purpose. Is it 'good' for a specific purpose and function? This is a crucial point that is almost completely overlooked by the present way of teaching and testing grammar. Good writing for an instruction on a train is very different from good writing for constructing an argument in an essay or  for a song you hope will be popular. This is a vital principle.

4. Analogy: buildings. 

When we look at buildings we can see that builders, engineers and architects from the beginning of human civilisation have operated on the basis of structure and function. If you build a house on a flood plain, it's a good idea to use stilts. If you live in a fantastically hot country, then thick walls and small windows is a good idea. Across the thousands of types of buildings across the world, we can identify many kinds of structure-and-function going on. As a preliminary to talking about language, this analogy might well help convey the idea of 'structure and function'. A short tour of a school or house would offer some good evidence of 'structure and function' - beams to hold buildings up, windows to let in light, doors to block off one room from another...etc etc.

5. Language has some analogies with this. 

It has structure and function within the different uses, which are in turn part of human behaviour. The simplest most interesting way of doing this is to collect some different language uses from around us: slogans on school walls ('Achieve! Aspire!); fire instructions; poems, stories, playground games; songs, prayers; non-fiction; comics; graphic novels;  captions; computer-speak. These are all 'real' examples of language-in-use. This should always be the starting-point of talking about grammar and not the bogus, made-up sentences much loved by grammar exercises. 

6. Having collected up these examples...

...we can do a mix of investigation and instruction. It's for teachers to decide on the balance here. Assuming, let's say, you decide to teach some of the key terms: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition, phrase, clause..., you could then look at these different real examples to see how the language varies and why. 'No smoking' is very different from 'Please don't smoke'. The grammar is very different. The aim of the language is similar.  But does it have a different effect on the reader/listener? Why? That tiny exercise can be reproduced a thousands times across different language-uses. You can turn this into role plays and games. 

7. Grammar terms are not consistent... 

...in whether they are specifically to do with purely naming, or purely identifying a function. So, for example, the word 'conjunction' ends up being a word to name a kind of word whilst at the same time describing its function ie to 'conjoin',  but 'verbs' don't verb, nouns don't noun. The function is not contained within the term. There is a loose way in which simple grammar tries to do this with such over-simplifications (some would say 'distortions') with descriptions like 'a verb is a doing word'. In reality, verbs don't do any more doing than any other word! They don't simply describe doing or even represent doing. We structure our feelings, instructions, actions, states of being, using words that we make work in different ways - but never on their own. They are linked and work with each other, like cogs. A cog isn't a functioning cog unless it has another cog to function with. So, just as a log is a log and not a beam until it is in a house being a beam, so a verb is not a verb until it's in a structure being a verb. So, it's not that verbs are 'doing words' (or some such) but they are words that are cogs which mesh, for example,  mostly with nouns and pronouns, which act as 'subjects' and 'objects' of verbs: 'I'm going out',  'He hit me' and so on.  

These analogies with cogs or buildings,  I'm suggesting, will help children understand what's going on much better than the misleading business of  naming parts of speech. And it is this understanding that helps us write.

8. A key part of understanding grammar is making up new stuff. 

We can do this with imitation, parody, and invention. This is the best way to use our knowledge of language to improve writing. Ask any writer of any kind and they'll tell you (confess!) the many ways in which they've imitated and parodied others. This doesn't just apply to 'creative' writers of poems, stories, plays, scripts, songs but also the writers of instructions, ads, newspaper articles, headlines, blurbs, political speeches, telling jokes and so on. I'd suggest that a key part of learning about grammar can come this way. We can mix the use of the terms as a way of trying to describe the imitations and parodies with the actual process of writing those imitations and parodies. It's unwise and unhelpful of doing this in the old ways, 'let's think of a noun', as this is isolating words from their function. 

How some Labour members are trying to win defeat

...and the anti-Corbyn Labour members are turning out this morning to...attack Corbyn. That figures: try to destroy any signs of Labour holding, securing, advancing in e.g. the big cities. Blame Corbyn for last night's results (not blame themselves for keeping up a non-stop, high profile media barrage of attacks on their own party leadership), win a defeat of Labour, depose Corbyn. Job done. Nice work, guys.

Lord Finkelstein (Conservative) says: "Jews! Don't vote Labour." My thoughts.

[I posted this on Facebook this morning]

Meanwhile over on twitter Danny Finkelstein has confirmed in writing to me several times that he really does mean to say, 'Jews! Don't vote Labour!' This is Lord Finkelstein (Conservative).

Urging people to vote for a political party is clearly not a crime (!). Urging your friends to do the same, likewise: not a crime. In recent years, there's been a view around that calling on co-religionists to vote or not vote in certain ways is regarded as 'communitarian' and 'divisive' and 'unhelpful' as applied for example to Northern Ireland, George Galloway and Luftur Rahman.

There is an added complication here. I'll try not to be tedious. Because the word 'Jew' applies or can apply to people who are 'ex-Jews' in religious terms this goes beyond a group of people who attend synagogues. As has been pointed out by many people in many different ways, put together, this really isn't a homogenous group which can easily be called 'the Jews'. Frequently, to do so, is an attempt to suggest more than it's homogenous: it's to suggest that 'the Jews' are acting together to achieve an aim which is beneficial to 'the Jews' as a whole. When such a claim or suggestion is made, people (me included) tend to point the finger and say that this is 'antisemitic'.

All this is made problematic by the fact that the state of Israel is rather inclined to talk of 'the Jews' or at least 'Jews' in summoning us to be part of the Israeli project either by emigrating or offering unstinting support. This leaves open the suggestion that Israel and supporters can lump all Jews together into one category but if anyone else does, the alarm bell goes.

What does this have to do with Danny Finkelstein? On this occasion, with no immediate and overt reference to Israel to me on twitter, Danny is doing the 'lumping' thing: he is gathering together the category 'Jew' (not quite the same as 'the Jews', but very nearly) and saying, you must act together in a particular way: don't vote Labour. Now, if I were to call that 'antisemitic', some would say 'impossible', 'overreaction', 'typical leftist absurdity'. Indeed, I'm not going to say it. Instead, I'm going to call it inconsistent and opportunist. If someone of Finkelstein's standing in public life, belonging to another community, were to make such a statement, I'm pretty sure they'd get a ticking off from a good view 'opinion-formers' in the newspapers and on TV and radio. 'What? Lady X has said to her fellow religionists, "Don't vote for Party A!"? How outrageous. This is divisive and segregationist and manipulative and shows us what's wrong with multiculturalism...' etc etc...

[In posting comments on this thread, please do not use the term 'the Jews', or tell me or anyone else that 'Jews' act as one, think as one, behave as one, or indeed - like Finkelstein - suggest that 'the Jews' or 'Jews' should think, act or behave as one! Please do not tell me that Israel runs the world, or even US foreign policy. Please do not be randomly abusive about Finkelstein. It will not help us to have a serious discussion. ]

We don't know what's going on, they don't want us to know what's going on, but they want us to help them exploit us!

The truth about EU/Brexit both before Referendum and now is simple: we, the people have no idea what's going on. 

Why would we? 

The whole point is that this is about the financial-industrial-political complex. 

These are various secretive cabals each engaged in trying to squeeze as much profit as they possibly can out of the most number of people. 

To do this, part of their job is to announce completely bogus crap in order to win sections of us over to their side. It's basically non-armed war. 

Particularly loathsome is the way politicians who are cutting wages and services as fast as they can, appeal to us to 'help' them go to war on their behalf.