SELF-EXPRESSION
Poetrymagic.co.uk

Though the website caters to mature writers I feel that certain aspects that I am about to highlight will be applicable in Secondary School classrooms to aid creative writing.
Students tend to get agitated while reading poems because of the technicalities involved. Furthermore, they develop the fear that their interpretation of the poem would/might be detached from that which was intended. I feel that students will learn to appreciate poetry as self-expression rather than as something they have to interpret. After they have learnt to appreciate poetry as such, we can torment them with forming the appropriate reading methods (as stated by Rinita).

The following three ideas were taken from the above website to aid teachers (referring to us!) in conducting a lesson on poetry writing aka self-expression. (As ICT lessons have taught us, meaningful learning involves LEARNING BY DOING).

Approaches to writing a poem
a. Topic: What sort of poem do you want to write? Using contemporary examples before getting started.
b. Get the class to say random words based on the topic and then begin to form lines around these words.
c. Use a diary or journal entry (topic related) to come up with an incident.
d. Walk through the metaphors from the contemporary examples (from a.) and find alternatives using a thesaurus.
e. Explore the ways in which these metaphors can be employed in the poem.

Cycle of writing
a. Identify a Theme – Refer to poems with similar themes
b. First draft – Work out content and decide on verse type, rhyme scheme and stanza patterning.

Performing
a. Students should be given the opportunity to perform their own poems.
b. This involves entertaining their audience.