“’I tuck the kitten under my jacket and run out of the woods, across the street, down the sidewalk toward my house,’” I read, then pause to look up.
“I think I see something,” Bryce says, pointing at the page in front of him. “Power of three—see how he runs out, then down, then toward?”
We glance around and see a few other heads nodding and students marking up the typed text in front of them. We’re reading a familiar text, “Everything Will Be Okay” by James Howe, looking for some of the craft techniques that we’ve been studying as we’ve read poetry.
“Bryce, I heard that too,” Tara says. “I love the rhythm it creates. This seems like a really popular technique; we’ve heard several other authors use it too.” We continue reading and notice some alliteration and metaphors.
Bryce has just noticed something important: All writers use craft moves to get their message across. Sometimes we reserve lessons about metaphor, alliteration, anaphora, and all the craft related to poetry for poetry. But really, those don’t belong to poetry; they are just the craft moves of strong writing.
In sixth grade, we spent time reading poetry and discovering the craft moves used by the poets. Our sixth graders start to feel confident talking like poets as they read Natasha Trethewey’s use of simile in “History Lesson”:
Minnows dart at my feet
glinting like switchblades.
Or Edward Hirsch’s use of alliteration in “In Spite of Everything, the Stars”:
A hundred fastballs fired at once
and freezing in midair
Or the anaphora threaded throughout “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon.
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
After students are familiar with different types of craft moves used by poets, we can begin to teach through read alouds and inquiry that writers of prose use writing-craft moves similar to poets’. Bryce’s recognition of the power of three in a short story shows his growing understanding that poetic devices are used not just in poetry but across genres.
With this knowledge, students are ready to experiment in their own writing. They take the new tools in their writer’s tool belt, knowing that they are applicable across genres and not limited to just poetry.
When students are getting ready to draft a writing piece in a genre like realistic fiction, editorials, or informational books, we’ll remind them about the poems they have in their binders and the charts in our room that name poetic devices. That way they can include some of those craft moves in their writing to get their message across.
Bryce, who noticed the “power of three” that he first learned about in a poem in a short story, tried this out himself in his informational writing piece about dancing:
They go to talent shows; they perform at their school; they basically dance whenever they can.
Monica tried the power of three in her realistic fiction story:
It’s been two weeks since her death, two weeks since she smiled at me asking if I wanted to go shopping with her, two weeks since I said no and locked my bedroom door.
Mia wove alliteration into her realistic fiction piece about a girl overcoming her fear of the ocean:
I take slow small steps towards the sailboat.
Christian used anaphora to draw attention to his point in his editorial about football:
With every tackle, there is a chance of a broken bone. With every tackle, there is a chance of a head injury. With every tackle, there is a chance that a player’s life will change.
When we conference and give feedback to students about their writing, they are often able to point out where they used a poetic device in their writing and, with encouragement, can discuss the impact it has on their writing.
However, if we see a craft move like alliteration or anaphora in a student’s writing, but they don’t point it out, we’ll point it out to them, helping them see the work in their own writing and giving them the support they need so they might try it again with more intention in another piece of writing.
Poems are the perfect place to study writing craft. Poetry, in its essence, is finding a unique way to get a message across with fewer words than prose; poems are short and accessible, some just a few lines long, but they pack a punch with few words. They give an entry point for young writers to discover the power of placing the right words in the right order. And once they’ve discovered these craft moves in poetry, students start to search for them in read alouds and their independent books. They see that writers of all genres, including themselves, can use these moves to get their message across.
