This is a guest post from Lisa Nehring. Find her at True North Homeschool Academy

It’s National Poetry Awareness month and there is no better time than now to introduce Poetry to your kids!

At its simplest, poetry is wordplay. The true master writer and speaker is one who can bounce and juggle, parry and foil with words and does so in a way that can lead their listener to tears, action or repentance.

Wordplay. Simple, right? Where do you even get started?

Getting started

Create a list for inspiration – a list of memories, feelings, hopes, dreams, goofy ideas, fantasies and fun ideas, high points and low points in your life. This can be your starting place of inspiration!

Understand Rhyme Scheme – the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme, lines designated with the same letter all with rhyme with each other. For instance:

Jack Sprat A
Could eat no fat, A
His wife could eat no lean. B
And so b’twixt the two of them, C
They licked the platter clean. B

Memorize short, simple, silly poems. My favorite source of inspiration for poetry memorization is IEW’s Language Acquisition through Poetry Memorization program. Based on Andrew Pudewa’s experience as a Suzuki trained violinist, the program breaks down poetry memory into do-able chunks.

Start writing fun and goofy poems on your own

• Haiku’s – composed of 3 lines- each a phrase. The first line is 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables, the third line, another 5 syllables. Often a seasonal reference is included.In the Woods they roam,
  The wildlife is creeping
  They are living life.
• Limmerick –a 5- line witty poem with a clear rhythm. The first, second and fifth lines are longer and rhyme. The third and fourth shorter lines rhyme (A-A-B-B-A).“There was an Old Man with a beard
  Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!
  Two Owls and a Hen,
  Four Larks and a Wren,
  Have all built their nests in my beard!'”
• Acrostic– is a poem where the one letter in each line spells out a word or phrase vertically that acts as the theme or message of the poem. It can be a name, a message or a theme.L is for laughter
  O is for original
  V is for value
  E is for eternal
• Free Verse does not follow any rules. This type of poem is completely in the hands of the author, rhyme, number of lines, punctuation, syllable count and number of stanzas. There is no right or wrong way to create a Free Verse poem.Fog by Carl Sandburg
  The fog comes
  on little cat feet.
  It sits looking
  over harbor and city
  on silent haunches
  and then moves on.

Continuing with Poetry Study

Memorize longer, more involved poems.
Analyze the poems you are memorizing. This can be simple at first- define the protagonist, antagonist, plot, setting, theme as well as the rhyme, meter and tropes involved.

Start learning and writing formal poetry. Formal poetry will include forms, meter, rhyme scheme and tropes.
Forms:

• Iambic meter (unstressed/stressed)
• Trochaic meter (stressed/unstressed)
• Anapestic meter (unstressed/unstressed/ stressed)
• Dactylic meter (stressed/unstressed/unstressed)
• Spondaic meter, (stressed/stressed)

Meter: is a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that defines the rhythm of some poetry. These stress patterns are defined in groupings, called feet, of two or three syllables. The most common meter is pentameter. In fact, Shakespeare often wrote in Iambic Pentameter.

Tropes (a.k.a. Figures of Speech):

• Alliteration
• Allegory
• Irony
• Hyperbole
• Metaphor
• Pun
• Personification
• Metonymy
• Similes
• Synecdoche

Now is a great time to take a poetry class- the ideal ages for this would suggest 5th -12th grade. Writing is best done in a group, in my opinion, and poetry especially, as it lends itself to great group projects and the writer has a ready audience to listen and creatively critique the students’ work.

For the Skilled Poet

Memorize longer poems, like The Charge of the Light Brigade. For those who want an excellent challenge, memorize, study and recite Horatius at the Bridge.

Enter Recitation events, like Poetry Out Loud or perform in Shakespeare productions.

Write formal poetry and participate/ enter events. Learn to write epic poems and sonnets.

Study poetry based on the historical or literary period that you are studying.

Poetry has been written since men began writing and it runs the gamut from free verse to highly stylized. Learning to read poetry will enrich a student’s understanding of the world and cultures around them. Learning to write poetry will enhance a student’s writing style in a way that little else does so effectively.

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