Writers’ Workshops

Author Kenn Nesbitt with second and third graders at Nine Mile Falls Elementary School. On the whiteboard is a poem they wrote together.

Where do you go if you have a poetry emergency? To the 811 section of the library! Students at both elementary schools learned this information from visiting author Kenn Nesbitt. They were treated to poetry writing workshops by Mr. Nesbitt, who has been writing humorous children’s poems for over 13 years. His latest book is Revenge of the Lunch Ladies.

To prepare for Mr. Nesbitt’s workshops, Librarian Mrs. Katie Browning shared an assortment of Mr. Nesbitt’s 1,000 poems with the students. Many of the classroom teachers also read his poems to their students. At Lake Spokane Elementary, students in Mrs. Sandi Mead’s classroom could learn and recite his poems for their classmates. This prior knowledge of his poems created an atmosphere of excitement as he recited student favorites. Knowing his poems helped the students focus on how to write their own poems using his tips.

One way to write a poem that Mr. Nesbitt shared was to take a poem the students knew and change it to make it funny. At one workshop at Nine Mile Falls Elementary, the group wrote, “Twinkle, twinkle little heart, Cupid shot me with a dart. That’s why I fell in love, With the first thing I saw, It was a glove!” Then, other types of poems, including clerihews and acrostics, were introduced and written as a group. A clerihew is a funny poem that begins with a name. A group clerihew that was written at one of the workshops was “Henry and Mudge, Ate too much fudge, Then drank a chocolate shake. They wound up with a tummy ache!” An acrostic is also a name poem; a name is written vertically. Then words or short phrases are given that describe the person: KENN: K~knightly; E~elegant; N~nimble; N~near perfect!

Third through fifth graders also received a workshop exercise sheet with poetry scaffolds to assist them in writing poems. A variety of verses were given, and the students were to complete the poem by adding lines. Each exercise came with specific instructions as to which lines should rhyme. They learned that the poem must make sense, and that every line does not have to rhyme. Mr. Nesbitt explained that a “non sequitor” is when two things do not go together; this is a common mistake that young poets make when trying to rhyme every verse. He also explained that in humorous poems, the final verse can be compared to the punch line of a joke. By the end of the exercise sheet, each student had written 14 original poems!

Mr. Nesbitt explained that a key to writing a poem is to get the idea down and then revise the poem to make it stronger or funnier. Word choice and the rhythm of the stanzas was discussed. He stressed that the more poems a person writes and revises makes the process easier, and the poems become funnier! He shared that writing poems is just like anything else, the more you practice (write and revise), the better you get.