Writing Poetry in Middle School

       Teaching students to write poetry in middle school should be a joyful activity, and one of my favorite poets, Donald Hall, implies as much in the last three lines of his poem, “The Sleeping Giant.”
 

 Later the high and watchful sun instead
 Walked low behind the house, and school began,
 And winter pulled a sheet over my head.

The narrator in the poem spends the earlier lines reminiscing about a time when he was four and his imagination allowed him to believe that a hill in Hamden, Connecticut, called “The Sleeping Giant,” actually concealed a giant who was fast asleep but would eventually awaken, wreaking havoc on the nearby community for burying him in dirt and vegetation.  In the last three lines of the poem, the narrator is suggesting that as we grow older “school” or “winter” causes us to lose the sense of wonder we once possessed when we were younger.

      In my experience that sense of wonder thankfully survives into a student’s middle school years, which is why teaching poetry to sixth, seventh and even eighth graders can be so rewarding.  When you look at the pieces in this packet, I hope you will quickly realize that the least important of them is the sheet on poetic terminology.  You may want to use that sheet to show eighth graders that to write traditional poetry involves a great deal more than the effective use of imagery, figurative language and the combination of sounds that make what I like to refer to as “the music” of a poem.

      Using figurative language, rhyme and rhythm effectively so that a poem sounds as if it has occurred as naturally as the spoken word takes a great deal of practice.  Some students may want to try their hand at something like iambic tetrameter, and I would not discourage them, but for sixth and seventh graders working with sound combinations and line length in addition to removing excess verbiage seems more than enough to tackle.  On the other hand, I would try your best to disavow them of the notion that all poetry must rhyme; otherwise, you will get nothing but greeting card verse.

      I hope the materials contained in this packet prove helpful. I certainly have enjoyed developing and using them over the years! Good luck!  Harper