Writer’s block! White page fever! Poetry phobia! They’ll become things of the past when students discover for themselves the power and pleasure of writing their own poetry. Kickstart Poetry offers poetry-writing exercises trialled in the classroom by experienced secondary teachers who are also practising poets.

The units include activities that vary widely in form and will appeal to a wide range of students. They provide a practical kickstart to writing each particular form of poetry, and include actual students’ poems to offer budding poets encouragement, guidance and inspiration. The activities also promote general English skills, as students engage meaningfully with spelling, syntax, grammar and vocabulary and consider carefully each word they use, or don’t use, and how it is placed in a line.

Topics Include:

• Like haiku?
• Note poems
• Objects and symbols
• Prose poems
• The sonnet
• River poems
• Doing a McGonagall
• Computer’s guide to everything
• The ode

and many more!