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No Rhyme without Meaning

Writing good rhyming poetry is hard. It's much harder for children than writing freestyle, because as well as having to find appropriate rhymes there's also the problem of getting the meter right. It's a time-consuming craft that can only be learnt through loads of practice. Much better, I think, for most of their poetry writing to be in free verse, and you'll find a strategy for leading them in that direction on the Found poetry 1 page.

However . . . children like to rhyme, so never say never.

Here's a scenario: the children have to imagine that they have been taken to see a litter of puppies, with a view to choosing one. They have to write a rhyming couplet about it. One of the lines, it doesn't matter which, must be: '(But) Which one shall I choose?'

e.g.	It's giving me the blues Which one shall I choose?

 

Restrict the time allowed to a couple of minutes. Tell the children that you'd obviously prefer it to fit in with the scenario, but they MUST write something.

Once they've done that, get them to repeat the exercise but using an alternative to 'choose'. You can brainstorm the alternatives, or they can use a thesaurus; then they must come up with a new rhyming, or near-rhyming, line. This could be done four or five times. So they might have: 'Which one shall I choose/pick/have/select/take', each one part of a different couplet.

e.g.	I've got to choose one quick But which one shall I pick?
e.g.	For goodness sake Which one shall I take?

 

Eventually, each child has to decide which is their best option, again giving consideration to rhyme, meter and meaning. This is the constant striving that is necessary when trying to write good rhyming poetry. In this way, we hope to avoid results like:

I can't decide which one to choose,
Because my dad is always out with his mates somewhere on the booze.

Invent your own scenarios, and repeat this exercise as often as you like/can. It's a path to the craft.

 

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