World Poetry Day is on the 21 March and we have some great tips to get your pupils excited about poetry.

Get everyone involved

Start the day by having a few people read out their favourite poems in an assembly or special gathering. This could be a mix of pupils and staff, which will help children see that poetry poetry can be enjoyed by everyone.

Parents can get involved, too. Send a letter home to let them know how the school is celebrating and encourage them to ask their children about the day afterwards.

Performance

Poetry is meant to be spoken aloud. You wouldn’t introduce a piece of music to children without getting them to listen to it first – regard poetry in the same way.

Play a video of a poet reciting their work on YouTube or read the students some of your favourite poetry.

Focus on children acting out the poem to the rest of the class – working in groups or pairs – and show them how to use their voice to engage the audience (through dynamics and adding expression and emphasis). You could even arrange for children to go to a different class to read out or perform favourite poems.

Cultural Celebrations

World Poetry Day aims to celebrate cultural diversity and the oral tradition. Keeping this in mind, make sure to have a selection of poems from around the world.

Poet

If possible, invite a poet into school. If time doesn’t allow this, on the day itself, research some local poets with the children. They can make contact with these poets and invite them to school at a later date.

Object

To inspire poetry writing, ask students to bring in an object (it could be something quite ordinary) and use this as a prompt to model how you use poetic techniques such as alliteration, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

People

Write positive poems about people you all know or famous people. Groups of children can work together on a secret person, and the rest of the class have to guess who it is.

Reactions

Responding to poems is a very personal thing, and what one person likes, someone else may hate. Ask children to describe how a poem makes them feel. What do they like or not like about it? But make sure you do not judge their responses. Instead, show them how you yourself respond to different poems in different ways.

Find out more about running your own First Class Learning Franchise by clicking the orange button below and submitting your details.