posted on 24 Jan 2019

Year Five Poets at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Malvern

I used extracts from a few of my favourite stories with a refugee related theme to inspire Year Five children to write acrostic poems in pairs. I suggested the words REFUGEE; FEAR; CHANGE; SHADOW; JOURNEY and ARRIVAL, and then gave a couple of examples that I had composed myself.  They were extremely generous in their critical assessment and told me that I had selected some appropriate vocabulary as well as using devices like alliteration and assonance to good effect! They clearly know the theory about what makes a successful poem.

While I was reading the extracts, I encouraged them to write down lots of words to fill a ‘treasure chest’ that they could then use. I gave them a bit of extra time between each reading to reflect with their partner about what to include – important not to rush this process. When I had a quick look to see the results, I was pleased to see that they had all written a wide selection of powerful words.

 I am sure that you will agree that the illustrated poems are really impressive. Every one of them is special and demonstrates skill and creativity as well as thoughtfulness and compassion. I hope that this talented bunch will continue to experiment with different kinds of poetry writing and hopefully to read some of the books that we used as a starting point.

Karen Argent

January 2019

( Click on any image below to view them in a slide show format)