English at Spark Academy is nothing if not varied: from persuasion to poetry, and comprehension to creative writing. You only need to see our previous Teacher Talk posts to see that – you can read all about our work on political speeches and information retrieval by looking back through Spark Ideas. At the moment our Year 6 students are beginning their SATs preparation in earnest. This year is very important for them. This is why we have already started practising their reading and SPaG skills – but we also know there’s more to English than comprehension and grammar!
Why poetry?
That’s why we like to sprinkle some creativity in with our SATs preparation. Earlier this term, the Year 6 classes at and Belgrave spent some time working on poetry. They learnt to create similes and metaphors. The classes also looked at more complex literary techniques: personification and hyperbole are two such techniques. These are all techniques that the students will be identifying and analysing all the way up to their GCSEs.
We looked at lots of different types of poetry, from acrostic poems to traditional poetic forms. Here are some examples of poems our amazing Year 6s wrote themselves!
An Acrostic Poem about Ice Cream
Ice cream, ice cream
Cookies and cream.
English toffee…
Chocolate chip and
Rocky Road.
Even strawberry or
Almond chocolate… but
Most certainly vanilla!
Ria J.
If anything could make us want to eat ice cream in December, it’s Ria’s clever poem.
The Vaccum
The vacuum sleeps in a dark store
Waiting to be picked up and roar.
You can give him anything to eat
When you press the button, it looks for meat.
It’s long giraffe neck
Is like a bird ready to peck –
It zooms around really fast
and when seen it looks very vast.
It always listens to me
(Not buzzing like a bumble bee).
It keeps things nice and clean.
He is always mighty and always mean.
R.
Amazing use of personification, similes and metaphors!
The Sea
The calm sea with no people around.
The violent sea when the wind blows all around.
The beautiful sea when the sun comes out.
The sea crashes against the rocks just like
thunder and lightning at night.
The sea is very warm when I jump in,
just like a warm coat on a frosty night.
Today the sea is quiet with no one in sight.
The sun shines on the sea when it’s bright.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to the sea…
For it’s time to catch our flight!
Kayaan V.
What beautiful imagery of the sea, all built up through similes and metaphors!
My Monster
We didn’t only write poetry in our lessons – some of our students also wanted to perform their poetry. Here is Ayman reading his monster poem on Halloween:
What do you think of the poems our Year 6s wrote? If you or your children have poems you’d like to share with us, we’d love to read them!