Countdown to Poetry Writing Step by Step Approach to Writing Techniques for 7-12 Years Countdown Series

Developing children's writing abilities boosts their confidence, creates enjoyment and relevance in the task and cultivates a range of decision-making and problem-solving skills that can then be applied across the curriculum. The Countdown series provides all the support you need in helping children to improve their prose, poetry and non-fiction writing.

This guide provides all the support you need in helping pupils to improve their poetry writing. Countdown to Poetry Writing is a comprehensive and flexible resource that you can use in different ways, including:

• stand-alone modules that cover all the essential aspects of writing a poem, including word play, use of metaphor, rhyme and many others
• countdown flowchart providing an overview showing how modules are linked and how teachers can progress through them with the pupils
• photocopiable activity sheets for each module that show how to make the decisions and solve the problems that all writers face along the road from first idea to finished piece of work
• teachers? notes for modules, with tips and guidance, including how modules can be used in the classroom, links to other modules and curriculum links, and advice on helping and guiding pupils in their writing
• a self-study component so that children can make their own progress through the materials, giving young writers a sense of independence in thinking about their work and offering built-in scaffolding of tasks so that less experienced or less confident children get more support from the resource
• 'headers' for each module showing where along the 'countdown path' you are at that point.

In short, Countdown to Poetry Writing saves valuable planning time and gives you all the flexibility you need - teachers might want to utilise either the self-study or 'countdown' aspects of the book, or simply dip into it for individual lesson activities to fit in with their own programmes of work.

Introduction 44. What is poetry? 43. The ‘poetical eye’ 42. Be yourself 41. Noticing and questioning 40. Stay calm 39. Have something to say 38. Motivation * 37. Training the senses 36. Sensory journey 35. Sound FX 34. Eat an apple 33. Ways of looking * 32. Imagery 31. Gathering the senses 30. Less is more 29. The three Ts 28. Pundemonium 27. Spoonersisms 26. What – nonsense? 25. Am I aloud? * 24. Syllables and Stress 23. Rhythm 22. Alliteration and Friends 21. Rhyme 20. Comparisons 19. What’s the point? Punctuation and the poem on the page 18. Shape poems 17. Alliterative phrases * 16. Kennings * 15. 3-Step game * 14. Uni-verses 13. ‘Myku’ 12. List poems 11. Counting poems 10. Chorus poems & chants 9. Limericks 8. Riddles * 7. Haiku * 6. Worsery rhymes * 5. Genre poems * 4. Blank verse 3. Free verse 2. Some other forms 1. Tips for writing

A former teacher, Steve Bowkett is now a full-time writer, storyteller, educational consultant and hypnotherapist. He is the author of more than forty books, including Jumpstart! Creativity and Imagine That.