I Can´t Write a Poem

Tempting or off-putting?

Occasional or a must?

Popular among students or a nightmare?

A nuisance or a superb teacher love?

I believe that teachers are generally attracted by the topic of creative writing. It is one of the things they claim they would like to learn or do more in the class. On the other hand, we tend to avoid it in adult classes because we think our students are not interested in it or not capable of writing creatively in English.

To unlock your or your students´ creativity J make a list of at least five excuses why you think you can´t write a poem. Then add the ideas to Bruce Lansky´s “I can´t write a poem“ poem grid (in italics).

Here´s my poem:

I can´t write a poem.

Forget it.
You must be kidding.
I´m so busy

I have to prepare my Glossa classes every night

I have to do the dishes and the vacuuming and exercise at least twice 

I am so tired of writing on the board in my class

I want to read books and watch blockbusters on the telly

I simply work too hard

I am not paid enough to be creative

My back hurts all night 

Time’s up? Uh oh!
All I have is this dumb list of excuses.
You like it? Really? No kidding.
Thanks a lot.
I might give it a try J

For me, creative writing is a synonym for unlocking imagination. Imagination is a synonym for playing with the language in an interesting unusual unique original way. Playing with the language is about becoming more fluent and flexible using the target language. To become a more advanced user of a language you have to develop self-confidence and positive motivation. To feel more motivated we like to collaborate with other people and share with them.  

Encourage your own creativity first

A teacher plays the key role. If you do not believe creative writing is important, you can´t make a successful use of it in the classroom. If you never write creatively, your students can never succeed.

Do not believe you can teach creativity

Do not teach them to write creatively, try to unlock creative thinking instead. Look up interesting topics, surprise students, vary tasks, discuss and debate things, let them observe each other, provide creative food for thought, prompt them, make them brainstorm, let them ask. And never give up!

Stretch creative writing muscles regularly!

Add creative writing tasks regularly. Proceed from simple tasks to more complicated ones.

I often write poems and stories with students. Not all poems have to rhyme and yet your students can become poets! Not all stories have to contain 500 words for students to become creative writers!

Here are my personal poem tips

Functional poem

I like to ask my students to use some phrases (e.g. for giving your opinion) from the list in coursebook and prepare a poem (e.g. on the topic of studying English, see NEF Advanced, 1C). Then we collaborate on the final version of the poem.

In my view studying English is interesting for you

In my opinion you should know how to spell garlic and onion

If you ask me I´m good at looking things up in a dictionary

Personally speaking you ought to study hard to become a language king

I feel that studying languages is better than to be a stupid spoilt brat

Which other areas of language could you use this type of a poem for?

Actually, the type mentioned above is an example of internal rhyme. To practise more, ask students to complete lines of verse about a specific topic, e.g. food.

Lollipops are better than old socks

Christmas mincepies are a treat for your eyes

Red apples give you healthy lips

Topic poem

Choose a topic (abstract nouns, emotions, activities). Students work individually then in groups trying to finish the sentence (X is …) in as many different ways as possible on separate slips of paper. Then they reorder the slips of paper making a poem out of it.

Loneliness is a telephone that never rings

Loneliness is spending every weekend alone

Loneliness is setting a place at the table for one

Loneliness is nobody remembering your birthday.

Would you like to compose your “creative writing” topic poem? Creative writing is ….

Variation: Write ten lines, beginning with “I believe …” or “I think …” is a good way to generate ideas on a given topic. 

Group Poem

Give your students four words that fit a rhyming scheme (or brainstorm the words from students), e.g. ABAB = writing, story, exciting, glory. The idea is to compose a poem using these words as the last words in each line of a four line poem.

Can you think of a group poem task which would fit your coursebook topic?

Variation: Give them a rhyming structure of about eight to ten lines. They write a list of words that follow the structure. Then they write a poem.

Many ideas come from Wordgames: Activities for Creative Thinking and Writing, Dianne Bates.

Diamond poem

Students create a poem following the structure below.

                                                ______ (one noun, subject 1 of the poem)

     ______ ______ (two adjectives decribing the noun)

_____ _________ ________ (three gerunds related to the noun)

_________ ________ _________ ________ (four nouns, two connected to subejct and two nouns connected to subject 2)

_____ _________ ________ (three gerunds related to the noun 2)

    ______ ______ (two adjectives decribing the noun 2)

                                                ______ (one noun, subject 2 of the poem)

Would you like to write a poem on students and teachers, or men and women?

Looking forward to your poem ideas. I promise I will add one more for each idea you share with us.

 Here are my tips on writing SMS, minisagas, collaborative stories, fairy tales …

 Prompting

 “Scaffold” the process of writing. It is useful to provide students with various and varied (!) types of writing prompts.

Not surprisingly, I use picture prompts a lot. Pictures from course books, Czech magazines, fotosearch clipart pictures, cartoons with Čtyřlístek, crazy Internet pictures, Rory´s story cubes or Flickr five card stories help me spark my students´ imagination. 

What about “sound“ prompts instead of pictures? Download some sound files/sound effects from the Internet and play them to your students who write a story based on them. E.g. dog barking, opening beer, giggling, a photograph taken, tornado…

Tick the prompts you would like to use in the next week of teaching:

• List of random words
• Picture prompts
• Dialogue prompts
• First lines from a novel
• Last lines from a novel
• Sounds
• Song/music
• A caption from a newspaper
• A real object
• A compelling first line
• A compelling plot
• A character profile
• A youtube clip

Imagining

I think students are more willing to write creatively if the topic mixes familiar and surprising features.

• Write Cinderella from the point of view of one of the ungly sisters (rather than create a brand new fairy tale)
• Explain what Christmas is to a young pine tree is (rather than write a maturita essay on how you celebrate Christmas in the Czech Republic). 

Collaborating

You provide a first part of the sentence. Display it in the class. Then students are asked to add one another part at a time (a sentence, a couple of sentences, a paragraph, a dialogue…) to the story e.g. before the course starts or when they finish a task early.

Variation: Prepare a padlet wall with the beginning of a neverending story. Students keep adding ideas on it.

  

Enjoy your two weeks with creative writing. Unlock your imagination, come up with interesting topics and prompts, collaborate and share!