How to Teach Kids to Write Songs and Poems.

To write songs and poetry, kids need something they care about. It might be as huge an elephant or as abstract as a favourite colour. Either way, guiding them through the process is just a matter of encouraging them to think about why they like or don't like something. The ultimate goal being, that they use the writing process to explore how they feel & use the finished product to express how they feel.

How to Organise the Writing Process.

Split the session into 3 separate activities, discover, develop, deliver.

1. Discovering a Song or Poem.

This should be great fun. Because this is where they're gonna choose something they care about.

You can use any sort of object for a prompt or start with a brainstorming session, such as, 'how many things do really care about ?' OR 'Who's your favourite teacher ?' OR 'Favourite ,colour, animal, item of clothing, sport, game, playmate, part of their body etc.'

You could also the brainstorm but this time listing things which they really don't like - such as Math or taking out the trash, visiting uncle Ben. Often this is easier and you may unwittingly discover really interesting things you didn't know.

Make them choose one - this might be difficult - but you must make them choose only one because song and poetry need to be focused, you can't have them confusing themselves and their audience with multiple subjects.

Repeat the brainstorming by asking 'how-why-when-who-if.' And get them to use short phrases to describe their attitudes and emotions. You'll usually find something which points to a sense of joy or excitement or loss or fear of loss.

If they don't find anything that way, try a 3 minute free write. Give them their heads and encourage them to ramble incoherently using unconnected phrases. Get them to just keep writing for the entire 3 minutes.

Any phrase which describes an attitude or emotion with any degree of eloquence will make a great title or chorus or refrain. 'I Hate Math' is perfect. It's simple and invites exploration and elaboration.

So now we need know the 'how-why-when-who-if' of this hated for Math. What do they prefer ? Is there any one they know who feels the opposite ? What lengths will they go to to avoid it ? Are they secretly wishing they could poison the teacher ? Yikes !

Obviously, there's opportunity here to disconnect fact from fiction.

Favourite colours can be interesting, especially if you discover someone has synaesthesia. Colours are also challenging because association with coloured emotions can be difficult. But these are great for really making creative minds come alive. What does it remind them of ? What is the opposite ? Which of these blues is the best ? Why ?. Who doesn't like this colour ? Etc.

This Discovery phase should be messy, fun, fast and exciting. Don't be afraid to set time limits and use visual and auditory prompts.

If they are really stuck, play them exerts from songs - baring in mind - everything they produce will be similar to what they listen to.

Get them to highlight their main theme - 'I hate Math' for example.

2. Developing a Song or Poem.

This is the hard work part.

You might want to set a limit or framework for their work, say three verses of four lines each.

Take that one great phrase - the 'I Hate Math' or it's equivalent. Explain that this is what they are writing about.

They can include comparisons and opposites and the views of other people and what life would be without it, but if 'Math' is their subject, get them to stick to writing about Math. Pin it up somewhere special so they don't forget.

All the other phrases and words are feeders.

They provide context, history, background, similar events, similar types of their kind. Any of them, some of them or all of them feed the main theme.

Time to get building. Set a time limit or a line limit or both.

There are dozens of musical and literary devises you could introduce, but there are only two elements which you absolutely need to develop. Rhythm and Melody. So if it's a song, just use two chords.

Rhythm

Songs are usually pretty constricted to their rhythm. So unless your kid is a musician, you can expect them to struggle to fit their ideas into the straightjacket of a fixed tempo. So don't be afraid to cut, cut, cut. Prepositions and any unnecessary words can go.

Play them a tempo if you think they'll need it - while you may well get a particularly gifted child who can meander in and out of the tempo and land on their feet - it's important they stick to a tempo or it becomes a poem.

Don't be afraid to stretch phrases out if they're too short - this is much easier than cutting and makes better art. And if there is one thing you can always get away with in song, it's this.....

Don't worry about it making sense.

It doesn't have to make sense because the music will tell listeners how to interpret it. Tell your kids this. It makes songwriting so much easier.

It's also true with poetry to a lesser extent because as we all know with any language, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

Melody

If your kids are very young, you'll most likely start out hearing monotone shouting. And here's a great opportunity to show how melody is present in all speech. And all we're going to do is overdramatise it a little.

If you can, teach them to think in phases, rather than just one word blobs. This also applies to poems. We talk, and are understood in phrases - not notes or one word blobs.

Try to keep the jumps to the next note small, just move to the nearest note which seems right.

And you may be surprised to find that the easiest way to think up a melody is to actually focus on the rhythm of the phrase instead of the notes. Again, speech has a natural rhythm which can be understood in isolation of other cleverer stuff.

How to Describe "Show Don't Tell.."

We talked a lot about emotions but what they must not do is use terms such as. 'Feeling sad'. That's telling and doesn't invite the listener into the song or poem. It summarises the whole story, we don't want that - we want the details of story; we'll make up our own minds how we feel about, thank you very much.

Instead, they should write, 'we have double Math today and my tummy is upside down cos I don't understand why E=mc2....' etc etc etc. This is showing the dirty detail and a listener can buy into that, create their own interpretation, apply it to their experiences and feel bad too. That's what the audience wants. They don't want a summary - they wan the long version.

A word on rhymes. Obviously Math rhymes with Graph and Giraffe. And some kids are naturally very good at rhymes. This can cause a small problem in that you get rhyme envy and rhyme fixation.

Try to encourage none rhyming phrases because otherwise, your kid will spend their entire time thinking up rhymes, and their finished product will just be a rhyme servicing exercise. That's not what creative writing is about.

Get them to focus on feelings and attitudes and lessons which might be learned from the content of their brainstorming rather than rhymes.

3. Delivering a song or poem.

This part should be fun, frightening and full of support from you.

By delivering, I mean performing it, finished or not, to get a feel for if it's working or not. This might be in front of a mirror, in front of peers or parents. It's really important to do this for several reasons.

Having their work judged will be hard for many kids but it can be a vital part them understanding how to communicate.

The feedback they get from an audience - even if it's just you - will take the weight off their shoulders and help them realise that their deepest emotions have value. This is great for their overall development.

It may also encourage them to write another deeper song or poem. It may also encourage them to re-write their original work and make changes for the better. Going back over the process again and again until they create something they really love performing, and which people react very positively towards.

However you choose to get them to perform their work, just be sure they know they're gonna have to do it because they may have written something very personal which they're not ready to share.

What Kids Learn From Writing Songs and Poems.

How to express themselves in front of others.

They learn how to make themselves understood.

They develop self analytical skills which help them understand their emotional relationships with the world around them.

An opportunity for free thinking, free writing and mind mapping.

Introducing fun and adventure and an 'anything's possible,' attitude to writing and thinking.

An opportunity to synergise visual, emotional and audible ideas.

They uncover a depth to aspects of life which they would otherwise be unaware of.

They learn how to organise this new knowledge into a package of art which can be redistributed, repeated and shared; and for which they can receive validation and approval.

Improved language skills as both disciplines require economy and precision. For example; a word's correct meaning may have to be searched in a dictionary.

An appreciation of the importance of melody and intonation in speech poetry and song.

An appreciation of the importance of rhythm in speech poetry and song.

An appreciation of deadlines, if you set one.

Performance experience, both alone and perhaps in front of an audience.

Social skills such as dealing with performance nerves and accepting praise or criticism.

If the work produced is about a significant loss, there will also be an element of self healing through understanding and connecting emotions and events.

Pride in themselves and their abilities.