Year Level Bulletins

Year 2 Bulletin

English- Literacy: Creating Texts

Writing Traits: Word Choice, Ideas

 

Writing a List Poem

 

A list poem consists of a list or inventory of things. The poem is created by a list of images or verbs and adjectives that build up to describe its subject. They are very deliberately organised and are not simply random lists of images. Often the title says what the list is about, and each word should be carefully chosen and memorable. List poetry uses a simple repetitive structure to inspire students to catch small details, play with imagery, and express their feelings and experiences in prose.  Innovating on a given structure scaffolds learning, which is especially helpful for reluctant writers.  It also simplifies the cognitive and creative load, which frees up writers to work with humour and voice.  List poems don't have any fixed rhyme or rhythmic pattern and the order of the list can either serve to provide additional detail or to show the author's state of mind.

 

Learning Intention:To use a mentor text as a prompt to develop our ideas in a poem.

 

Learning Experience Overview:

 

To begin with, we came together as a year level, to share our ideas and break down the meaning of our Learning Intention.

 

We collectively read the mentor text ‘Things I have been doing lately’ by Hudson (11 years old) – inspired by Allan Ahlberg’s (1991) ‘Things I have been doing Lately’.

We discussed the structure , and how a list poem is based on a single topic or idea, which is usually explicit in the title of the poem.

 

Then, together, we marked the repetitive elements that create the backbone or structure of the poem. We marked all the lines starting with the ‘ing’ form of the verb – looking, moving, opening, swinging, and noted the breaks in the structure.

 

Our focus was to think about word choice and descriptive language.

 

The second part of our activity, involved students brainstorming verbs to be used in the ‘ing’ form, at the beginning of almost every line.

 

Prompts were given for:

  • more explicit verbs
  • adjectives to describe the nouns
  • noting other activities which are part of your daily or weekly routine

They produced a rough copy, which was edited for spelling and grammar, then wrote out the corrected version and then a final copy, which you will see.

 

Prompts/questions/responses

 

Helpful ideas to use during planning the list poem:

  • What is the mentor poem about?
  • What is the main topic or theme of the mentor poem?
  • What does the title make you think of?
  • How does that title make you feel?
  • Can you think of any special things that you have been doing lately?
  • What about the things that you do every day, or every week?
  • Can you think of a more descriptive verb - stumbling instead of walking? 
  • Once you have the activity in mind, ask yourself how you could describe it using a vivid verb or awesome adjective.

To continue the learning at home, from this experience:

  • Continue to encourage your child/ren to write for pleasure at home, and share their writing and ideas with you.  You might like to write a poem or story together, alternating each line or collaborating on ideas.
  • Encourage your child to read more types of poetry, not just the simple rhyming form. Perhaps try poetry books that your local library would stock.
  • As you read together, bring their attention to how the writer has used different techniques. Ask them what a certain writer does in their writing, that they could do too – uses descriptive words or comparisons or alliteration.
  • Read every day, to expose your children to new ideas, different styles of writing, other structures and ways of looking at the world 
  • When you are reading together, notice new ways with words and explicit vocabulary which is used to heighten the reader’s mental image of what is happening in the text. Encourage them to use those words and ideas in their own writing.
  • Write a poem together based on a known poem, where you can model correct organisation of ideas and structure 
  • Be available to help them with spelling and editing their writing.
  • Type it up on the computer.
  • Make it into a book form, with illustrations.
  • Set aside time to read and listen to them reading what they have written.
  • Encourage all ideas for poems. – nonsense poems, rhyming poems, free form poems, limericks.
  • Most of all, have fun writing together!