How can you help your pupils plan poetry?
Planning poetry doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Use these prompts to help your pupils plan a successful poem.
Poetry Prompts
1. Who is the audience?
Thinking about who will read the poem will help the writer decide the form the poem takes.
2. What is the purpose of your poem?
Thinking about the purpose of the poem can help direct the writer towards an outcome.
3. Which words will you use?
Listing subject-specific vocabulary you’d like to use ensures that rich and engaging words draw the reader in.
4. What emotion do you want to evoke?
Explain that poetry often evokes an emotion in the reader, so planning the feeling you want your poem to generate can help direct ideas towards this.
5. Which poetic device might you use?
Model useful examples of poetic devices such as metaphors, alliteration, similes, onomatopoeia etc.
6. How will the poem be structured?
Deciding how many lines and stanzas the poem will have and how the line breaks can be used for effect can help structure the poem.
Why think about this?
Poetry can be very challenging to write, therefore, careful planning through prompts can set pupils up to win.
Tip
Once lines of poetry are formed, cut them up and allow pupils to rearrange them to see the impact of restructuring their ideas.
