A Poetry Teacher's Toolkit

Book excerpt: Professional poets spend many hours crafting a finished piece of work, yet we expect children in school to sit down and write when they are told to, whether they feel inspired or not. This series of four books is a toolkit to help you build a positive framework for children to read, write, understand and enjoy poetry - to bring a creative spark to the poetry classroom. A combination of featured poems, creative ideas, structured lesson plans and differentiated photocopiable activity sheets gives the series a uniquely flexible approach - which means you can use the materials in any classroom context. If you're wary of poetry, if you think it's boring, or if you're nervous about teaching poetry, then you've chosen the right book. Key themes covered in BOOK 2: Rhymes, Rhythms and Rattles are rhythm and rhyme in poetry, sounds, alliteration, words to create effects, onomatopoeia, and metaphor and simile. Other books in the series are: BOOK 1: Words and Wordplay; BOOK 3: Style, Shape and Structure; and BOOK 4: Language and Performance.