Creative writing can be a problem for many children. Some find it hard to set their ideas down on paper. Some lack the confidence to display their inner thoughts on paper. Some just cannot come up with the ideas in the first place. If your child has difficulty with creative writing, Better Tuition can help. One way we unlock creativity is through the medium of poetry.

You may find this approach surprising; after all, students are not required to write poetry at GCSE level, nor does it feature in SATs. Let me assure you, this approach works: poetry acts like a conduit to prose. Of all forms of creative writing, poetry is the most powerful. It teaches us that writing isn’t about volume; it’s about imagery and sound, rhythm and cadence. Poetry makes words dance on the page.

Once you have learned to write poems with confidence, prose is a piece of cake.

Let’s take Student A as an example. Like many others, the student lacked confidence in creative writing. She simply hated to write because, I suspect, she feared criticism. We began by working on haikus and tankas.

Haikus and Tankas are Japanese in origin. A haiku is a three-line poem consisting of:

Five syllable line
Then seven syllable line
Five syllable line

Most haikus are about nature. We read some examples of haikus, then my student wrote her own. She could see it was not too difficult because it’s very short and the only rule is that you must stick to three lines and the 5-7-5 syllable rule.

Next, we moved on to tankas.  A tanka is very similar too, but slightly longer than, a haiku. It follows the pattern:

Five syllable line
Then seven syllable line
Five syllable line
Then seven syllable line
And seven syllable line

Like haikus, tankas are often about nature and in addition to this they often express emotion. They are a nice, not-too-demanding step up from haikus. You could also, at this stage, consider including simile, metaphor and other literary devices. Student A enjoyed writing haikus and tankas because she could express herself and describe the loveliness of nature without needing to ‘fill a page’. What’s more, haikus and tankas do not need punctuation so Student A could focus on using her imagination.

Then we moved on to found poetry. Found poems are made by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from a page in a book, a newspaper or even the back of a cereal packet. Student A felt really empowered because she was freed from the need to come up with all the words herself.

After this, we moved on to acrostics. An acrostic poem offers a really clear structure and it doesn’t have to rhyme. Students feel free to experiment with language because they know that the only rule is that the first letter of each line must spell out a given word. As long as they do that, they’ve got it right.

This is Student A’s acrostic poem.

I love this poem because it really captures, in just a few lines, the life of a mother polar bear. You feel like you’ve observed her at close range.

I’m planning to move on to a cethramtu rannaigechta moire poem with Student A. Here is an example of a cethramtu rannaigechta moire poem by Steven Withrow.

Luckily this Irish poetic form is easier to execute than it is to pronounce. This poetic form is satisfying because it is so simple. It is made up of four-line stanzas (we call these quatrains) and lines two and four rhyme. Each line has three syllables.

There’s nothing like a poem to soothe the soul, uplift the spirits and heal the metaphorical cuts and bruises we all pick up on life’s journey. A good poem is a hug, a cup of tea and a long bath all in one. Poetry reassures us we are not alone. It celebrates the majesty of everyday life and the wider world. So my final piece of advice is to read poetry with your child. Carol Ann Duffy, Allan Ahlberg or Roald Dahl are three of my favourite children’s poets, but there are many more.

If your child needs some help with creative writing, contact us today to book your FREE assessment or FREE trial lesson. You may also like to download our FREE creative writing workbook.