Penguin's Poems by Heart

Product Information

The organisers of the Poetry By Heart competition, aimed at 14- to 18-year-olds, has published a set of 65 poems to support the teaching of poetry to younger children. Between 2013 and 2016 Poetry By Heart was the principal educational initiative of The Poetry Archive, developed with The Full English and supported by the Department for Education. It was co-founded by Andrew Motion (Co- Director of The Poetry Archive) and Dr Julie Blake (Co-Director of The Full English and Education Director of The Poetry Archive) in February 2012. Since 2016 Poetry by Heart has been directed by The Full English. Those with warm memories are often ardent, lifelong advocates of learning a poem by heart, but their experience can be so embedded in particular relationships and contexts that it can be harder to tease out a more generalisable set of ideas about the value to children’s learning. What exactly are the benefits to children of learning a poem by heart? In ten years of running Poetry By Heart we’ve listened avidly to the stories and testament of many thousands of teachers, librarians and pupils who have taken part, in every school type and every corner of the country. Here are nine things we’ve learned. Achievement Co-founder and director Julie Blakeof Poetry By Heart explains just why learning a poem by heart is so beneficial for children.

The competition opens on National Poetry Day, the first Thursday of October, and the closing date for competition entries is the end of March. Finalists are announced mid May with the grand finale taking place at the end of June. Children consistently tell us that learning a poem is fun. That can mean many things but includes the freedom to choose a poem for themselves, the difficulty of the challenge, the risk and the dare of performing their poem, and the immediate gratification of the respect of their friends and relatives when they take that risk. Focus

Participation

Poetry By Heart is the poetry recitation competition for English schools. We are open to students in Key Stages 2-5 across a variety of competition categories including showcase (with the opportunity to enter self-written poetry or poems in other languages) and freestyle, where you can get really creative with different elements such as music, animation and more! There is also a special round for teachers and librarians to get involved.

Any selection of poems to memorise should feature this classic example of nonsense verse. The full poem first appeared in Carroll’s 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, his superb follow-up book to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and as well as giving us several new words now in common use (see the link above to discover more, and to read the full poem), it is also a glorious short narrative poem about a hero slaying a monster. What’s not to like?A national poetry recital competition has launched a set of interactive resources for primary school children and their teachers.

It is one of the most memorable poems of all time. In this beautiful piece, William Wordsworth describes how a simple rainbow mesmerizes his heart. Through its simplicity, it reveals some deeper concepts regarding spirituality and romanticism. This poem centers chiefly on a rainbow, a symbolic representation of nature and how the poet wishes to keep his childlike self alive. Here’s the full text of the poem: No one can learn a poem by heart for you. You have to create your own relationship with the poem, discover what memory tactics work best for you, and keep going when it seems too difficult. More managed curriculum activities don’t always have this scope and teachers are often delighted by the gains in learning independence. Language Poetry is often taught through the rather mystifying lens of Latinate terminology. Fun for some but many children need more experience of poems to make sense of it. Learning a poem by heart seems to develop that experience in an accessible and embodied way through children feeling rhythm on their pulses, noticing how rhymes knit a pattern and hearing the music of sequences of words. Julie Blake, co-director of Poetry By Heart, said: “In the last couple of years many teachers have asked us if we could develop some resources for younger children and we are delighted to have done that now. The Poetry By Heart resource for primary school children is designed to help pupils and teachers find poems they love, and enjoy them together through reading aloud and learning them by heart. It encourages playful discovery and serious fun.” Here are the poems selected:Adults are regularly surprised by the facility children seem to have for learning by heart, with varied reasons proposed such as less fear, the pliability of young brains, and more time to devote to it. There’s a general consensus that once you’ve learned one thing it’s easier to learn more things, a poem being a very good place to begin. Oracy