Activity 3: Creating a Poem for Peace
Note: Peace One Day’s theme for 2013 is ‘Who Will You Make Peace With?’. Although not essential, creating a poem around this theme is a welcome idea. Watching our ‘Who Will You Make Peace With?’ video can help children build a deeper understanding of the theme.
A great way to start the main activity is to create a large bank of ‘wow words’ and ‘phenomenal phrases’ that the children associate with peace. By asking ‘when you think of peace...’
• What places spring to mind? • What colours come to mind? • What feelings do you think of? • What objects do you think of? • What scene can you see? • Who do you think of? • What words do you think of? • etc.
Brainstorming a range of feelings, places, objects, thoughts, ideas, perceptions and anything else to do with peace, will help children to establish a valuable foundation of vocabulary. Encourage expansive use of the imagination. If wild imagination turns into silliness, reminding children of the competition may steer them toward being focused!
The range of vocabulary, ideas and examples created thus far can help pupils write a short Poem for Peace. Keeping the Poem for Peace short and powerful is an important practical requirement for the competition. Emphasise that qual- ity, not quantity, is the idea, going on to explain that there is a limit of 12 lines (not including lines between verses). This 12-line-limit still allows for a range of verse combinations (two verses of six lines, three verses of four lines etc). Alterna- tively, pupils can also create a shorter poem if they choose. Ensure these options are clear to them.
Beyond the line count, giving children a ‘blank page’ to write their poem, and making the activity open-ended, could permit them to create a highly personal piece of work. For those children who may need further help and/or structure, consider following one of the frameworks below:
Peace Senses
- a beautiful structure requiring conceptual thought. “If for one day...”
- a thought-provoking structure based around repetition. A Tanka Poem for Peace
- a simple, classic structure resulting in powerful poetry.
In any case, remind children to refer to their Poem for Peace Resource sheet throughout the writing process, ticking the ‘I can’ column as they construct their poem. This will help to remind them to include at least two poetry devices and / or challenge them to include more. This sheet also provides clear directions of how to enter their poem into the competition.
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