Teach Reading and Writing Issue 19

18 | www.teachwire.net As a former Y6 teacher, I understand the pressures on both teachers and pupils each time anyone picks up a pen in the classroom. Poetry provides a different space where, I believe, teachers can facilitate creativity in writing such that children can really express themselves and write in their own voice. Why verse works Verse novels are succinct, to the point and pared down. They allow the writer to distil emotion into a few hundred pages in a way that won’t overwhelm a young reader. V erse novels are a fantastic, immersive way to get both teachers and their pupils feeling comfortable with all the ways in which poetry can move people. The English education system’s focus on exams has piled pressure on teachers for so long to teach writing in a way that ticks governmental boxes, that real creativity can often be stifled. This is a huge source of frustration for educators yearning to let young minds express themselves. There are many, many incredible examples of verse novels published in the last few years that can be read in both primary and secondary classrooms. Their approachable range of subject matter allows readers to feel that poetry can do whatever it wants to do and is not bound by age-related expectations. How to teach a verse novel I think the ideal way for a verse novel to be shared in classrooms, when budgets allow, is to use a class set, with children following along as their teacher reads. The beauty of this is that pupils can see exactly how poetry differs from other sorts of writing on the page; how a poet makes use of space and form to convey emotion. If you don’t have budget for a class set, you can use a digital copy of the book, or visualiser, to share the text with the whole class on a screen as you read. Children will also be exposed to how writers can manipulate words and language in a way that can capture accent and dialect. In my verse novel, The Final Year , for example, the main character, Nate, speaks in the voice he has grown up with. It is far, far removed from Standard English. This is an excellent way to start WELL-VERSED Verse novels are an accessible and effective way of introducing children to the power of poetry, says Matt Goodfellow