Teaching Poetry In The Primary School

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

his book is designed to encourage and upskill teachers to introduce and explore poetry in the classroom with their students. Poetry has many proven benefits for learning outcomes and can help significantly in students' literacy journey. Dr Murphy's book is packed full of poem-driven activities and tips for engaging students with poetry. Dr Murphy says "As well as writing books, I am a poet. I love crafting poetry on all kinds of topics, and in a range of forms, both rhyming and unrhyming."

Teaching Poetry in the Primary School encompasses the poetry requirements in National Curriculum programmes of study for Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing.

Describes the different resources that can be used to teach high school students about poetry.

This is an utterly original and completely beguiling prose novel about a boy who has to write a poem, and then another, and then even more. Soon the little boy is writing about all sorts of things he has not really come to terms with, and astounding things start to happen.

When asked by the school inspector what he thought of poetry, an eleven year old replied that "it's all la-dida and daffodils, isn't it?" In his primary school the boy had come across very little poetry apart from nursery rhymes, snatches of rhyming verse and a few comic pieces and nonsense poems. Poetry to him was something arcane, not really related to his own life. He had studied no powerful, challenging, contemplative, arresting, quirky poems and had written very few poems himself. His teacher admitted that he was no English specialist, had received few ideas at college on the teaching of poetry and didn't really know where to start. As children progress through the primary school they need to be exposed to a rich diet of poetry and encouraged to read, perform and write it themselves. Providing a varied and stimulating environment is essential if is to flourish. In addition, children need specifi c guidance and ideas to start them off writing their own poems. This book, written by a former teacher and school inspector, and popular and widely published children's poet, offers an accessible, practical and structured programme for the teaching of this sometimes neglected aspect of the English curriculum.

"Rhythm and Resistance offers practical lessons about how to teach poetry to build community, understand literature and history, talk back to injustice, and construct stronger literacy skils across content areas and grade levels-- from elementary school to graduate school. Rhythm and Resistance reclaims poetry as a necessary part of a larger vision of what it means to teach for justice." from cover.