Rime of the Elementary Mariner ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, ENGLISH MAJORS HELP KIDS WRITE POEMS TOO by Joanna Peery photo by Brett Lider Could you explain haiku to a second grader? "Well, it's a poem with three lines, and five syllables in the first line, and seven in the second, and five in ..." "What's a syllable?" "It's a beat, a sound in a word ..." "What's a poem?" At this point even the most seasoned English major begins to stammer because that's exactly what some of us shell out thousands of dollars a year to contemplate. But now, thanks to U.Va. Creative Writing Program Director Lisa Russ Spaar and a crack commando team of volunteers, students at Greer Elementary are learning about poetry -- how to think about it, how it works, and most important, how to write it. The program began in the fall of '95, suggested by the former Greer vice principal Pat Lloyd, who wanted to create a formalized version of the occasional workshops led by Spaar. At the time, there were 14 volunteers, mainly U.Va. undergraduates, who were hand-picked. Now, says Spaar, students come to her, ready to participate in the program. Teachers are also eager to have workshops for their classes. Why the interest? For one, the kids love it. Most role models in elementary school are parents and teachers; college students are "hipper" and younger, granting us more credibility with kids. Spaar summarizes that "caring about language is something worth doing." There are benefits for the volunteers, too. It's nice to be around kids; we live in as much of a skewed population as these kids do, surrounded almost entirely by those our own age. We tap back into the way kids learn, possibly giving ourselves renewed energy for academic pursuits. And, according to the Program Director, "when you have to articulate what you're doing instinctually, you learn it better." Of course, an elementary school can be a swamp of distractions from great literature. Poop is very popular subject matter amongst the younger set, as are explosions and grisly bodily injuries. "The sun is like ... a airplane that exploded up in the sky and all the people fell out and went SPLAT on the ground and got killed." There's also the occasional random misunderstanding: once a tiny second-grade girl held up her gold crucifix necklace to show us. We told her it was very pretty. Then she informed us solemnly, "God died." Such misunderstandings serve a purpose, though; they remind us that there are thousands of ways to interpret the world, and we may either put them to creative use or allow them to distract us. While we are indeed distracted much of the time, fresh viewpoints do surface. Elementary school students have very few preconceived notions about poetry. Only a few think it has to rhyme, and one second-grader said he thought poetry was "nonsense" words all put together. But children are naturally open to new ideas; they aren't limited or inhibited in ways that older people are. Leslie Edwards, a volunteer in the program, says that working with the students has helped her own writing, claiming, "It helps you with your own biases. You question clichés because the kids don't have problems" with knowing what is clichéd and what isn't. The trick of teaching a subject like poetry is to introduce new ideas to children without stifling their own innate creativity. One way Edwards tackles this problem is by teaching a form -- for example, an ode -- and reading several examples. Students then get the chance to write their own. In the case of the ode, the students were to write an ode on something that exists now (in contrast to the examples they're used to, all centered in ancient Greece). A few examples: Ode to Fireworks Who light up in flames. It shot down my airplane And blew out my brains.       -- Ben Ode to Bubble Oh mighty bubble how much you scare me out of my pants. You look like a UFO Up in the sky I can't wait 'til you pop!!       -- Adam The school system, according to Edwards, can make kids "scared of deviating" because their days are severely structured. Although apprehensive about this less-regulated writing, the kids soon become enthusiastic. The best part of participating in the program, Edwards says, is when a kid gets "so excited about (a) line" that he or she wants to write another poem immediately. Although the students have a good deal of enthusiasm for poetry writing, it can be difficult to keep them engaged. The volunteers use a variety of alternative teaching methods, including poetry Mad Libs, poetry magnets, numerous visual aids, and poetry relays (in which one student runs up to the board, writes a line, and tags the next student, who does the same). The visuals are especially important in keeping the attention of the younger children; they help find an angle that brings poetry down to the level of a seven-year-old's familiarity -- for example, one class wrote haiku about some toys brought in by the volunteers. One of these haiku (by a student named Nigel) contained these memorable lines: "The meteorite / A thing of doom ...," demonstrating that poetry can indeed be about anything (with the possible exception of fluffy kittens, which should never appear in poetry). In my few weeks participating in the program, I saw second graders write lines I wish I had written. There's a "freshness with which they see things," says Spaar. In addition, some of the students are just learning to write, so they confound syntax. This unworldly viewpoint allows them to write things that sound surprisingly deep. Consider this poem, made with poetry magnets: a big country called New York. a rain forest we crawl out from a strange table      -Rachel And while, as Spaar says, "we sometimes forget what it's like to be a new language maker," there is the chance that, in teaching children to write poetry, we will get back some of our old ability and innocence. Those interested in participating in the program may call Lisa Spaar in the Creative Writing office.

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