Writing from the heart - teaching poetry

5 ways for kids to pen love poems--without blushing or giggling

With Valentine's Day just a heartbeat away, it's time to start planning a lovely activity in its honor. Suggest your students write love poems, and there's a good chance half the class will stick their fingers down their throats and the other half will crawl under their desks. Before they do, explain that the love poems you have in mind aren't the gushy, mushy kind...these odes will be in praise of objects, places, and students themselves. Here are the steps they'll be following.

I. THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION

Your students will warm up to writing their odes by brainstorming three different lists of possible subjects to celebrate. For the first list, invite students to think of possessions they adore, are amused by, or find useful. Encourage outright silliness. One second grader's list included:

* my broken watch

* my red baseball cap

* my toothbrush

* my grandpa's false teeth

Remind kids to look for unusual items that others aren't likely to have on their lists, such as bottle caps, a locket, a butterfly collection, or a fishing pole. The list can be as long as each writer desires.

2. PLACES IN THE HEART

Now ask your kids to brainstorm lists of specific places. They can be places that bring up fond memories or places they imagine. A sixth grader wrote:

* a hayloft in spring

* the ice-cream parlor

* camping under the stars

* my aunt's rose garden

Remind students that the more they focus on specific detail, the better. For example, "New York City" is too general, but "in front of Macy's department store on Christmas Eve" is powerfully specific.

3. ME, GLORIOUS ME

Now ask your writers to make a list of details about themselves--their habits, hobbies, and personal characteristics. A third grader's list looked like this:

* freckles

* the scab on my knee

* my giggles

* my heartbeat

4. ODE, DEAR

Now it's time to wax poetic. Explain to your class that an ode is simply a love poem that enthusiastically praises the beloved. Odes don't have to rhyme, but remind students that the best poems create colorful pictures in the reader's mind. Any item on the lists can become the subject of the ode. (The beauty of brainstorming three different lists is that it gives students lots of choices and plenty of material to write several odes.)

One first grader wrote an ode to his grandmother's lap, while a fifth grader sang the praises of her mouth eating chocolate! Here is an excerpt from a fifth grader's ode.

Oh, ships in a harbor, how I miss you. the smell of salty sea air. You shine like the sun in the sky. the waves crashing on the rocks. You were so special to me, all of you...

Erica Reichhardt, Village Elementary, Hilton, New York

Younger writers will no doubt shape their love poems in prose, and that's fine, too. They can begin by drawing the object, place, or part of themselves that they love the best, then write about their pictures.

5. MY SECRET HEART

Here is another sweetheart of an idea that students I work with really take to. Have them look back at their lists of places, real and imagined. Ask them: "If your heart were a place, which place would it be?" Have students write a poem or a story about the place of their heart. Inspire them by reading aloud the following poem by a fourth grader.

My heart is a place where forever meadows stretch wide. A waterfall dashes down. It whispers my name. Fish swim, the sun reflects on their scaly backs... a deer passes by me to swallow the velvet-blue stream. It looks like a place that no one will know about; my heart.

Lindsay Meagher, DeWitt School, Webster, New York

Now that your students can fearlessly write poems brimming with affection, perhaps they'll write a love poem to you.

DR. CYNDE GREGORY, author of Childmade: Awakening Children to Creative Writing, works with thousands of children and teachers annually in workshops and residency programs.

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