Show Don't Tell in Your KidsLit Writing

I recently finished editing a friend's novel and a big piece of feedback I kept giving was, "show don't tell" in moments where character dialogue would go further than narrator summarization.

I thought about this in relation to the children's poetry I write. One thing that can irk me in writing for kids (especially in poetry it seems) is that the message is constantly told to young readers, as if they can't piece it together from something being shown to them.

Lessons are written bluntly and morals directly stated rather than inferred as they often must be in fairytales and fables. I think these shortcuts are for good reason though and not a result of lazy writing. There seems to be a desire to hook readers as much as possible, as if pieces must be clickbait themselves. So, by creating a quick setting or scene and then explaining the importance, there is a feeling that what’s needed to be said has been said and hopefully the child understands. Maybe a piece of this is true, but I think it’s when challenged to find meaning that the messages sticks. And this doesn’t have to be riddle or anything difficult!

For example, I could have written a piece saying that "everyone is in important" or "everyone has a story," but instead I wrote "Bill Ordinary," creating a character and scenario for readers to infer this message from and make their own reading. Rather than being a didactic adult about it, I want the audience to reflect on what they consider ordinary and what they consider remarkable in their own lives and just saying those things or directly asking them to reflect wouldn’t have the same effect.

Trust your readers to be intuitive, curious, and smart. Show them a message in action rather than stating it directly!

What's the Weather

What’s the Weather?

What’s the Weather?

What’s the weather like today?

Is it sunny? Is it cloudy?

What’s the Weather like today?

Is a pretty standard song classrooms use for morning meetings . And, as it turns out, weather is something a lot of kids like to talk about!

I think it’s because it effects them immediately. Weather is easy to recognize and it’s impact is easy to quantify. For example, if it’s a rainy day the park trip will probably be canceled. So the connection between weather and expectations or emotions is pretty direct.

For that reason i really love to use weather and seasonal imagery (Halloween, the winter Holidays) as prompts in my workshops where poets either have difficulty ideating, or on the cusp of being able to abstract and come up with their own prompts.

I’ll oftentimes reference whatever the weather currently is, talking about summer heat and thunderstorms or how could New York winters can get! This gives the prompt a bit more immediacy as the poets can rely on their senses and short-term memory to support their abstraction.

Words on a white board in black expo marker read “Brrr! It’s cold outside / so I” with a long line after “I” for student response.

I remember very vividly sitting in my second grade class when a thunderstorm opened up torrential rain. None of us could pay attention to what was happening, we were transfixed on the storm outside. The teacher said, “Haven’t you ever seen rain before?” Which, besides being rude, missed the point entirely. Of course we’d seen rain before, but every time it’s a little different and a exciting. There’s a natural curiosity to weather, in part because its something so out of human control, that has made the the subject of paintings, poems, stories, and songs throughout human history. I want to take this same curiosity in the poets I work with and hone it.

Words on a white board in blue expo marker read “It’s raining it’s pouring the” This line is repeated again and again.

Weather can be a great entryway into other topics, especially with a newer group. I might not know the poets well enough to know all their interests and passions yet, but I can find a common ground and common curiosity through what’s happening outside.

Words on a white board in black expo marker read “Brrrr! It’s cold outside so I…” with various student answers written. The answers are hard to completely discern at the distance of the photo.

Font Fopas

I can't tell you the amount of times I print something off quickly for workshop, read it, realize every capital i looks like a lower case L and debate with myself whether or not I should recycle the papers or just power ahead.

So for a small tip: take a few extra seconds in your prep time to make sure you use a font where capital i and L are obviously different, especially working with poets just learning to read and write. I usually keep it basic with Times New Roman, but there are definitely more fun and engaging fonts out there that also make a clear distinction.

This simple edit makes it easier for everyone to read, whether you're printing something for a collaborative found poem, individual reading activity, or blowing the letters up large for an activity on the board.

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Teachers & Writers Publication

It has been a wild couple weeks for me, but wanted to take a second to share that I recently published “Found Poetry & Accessibility” in Teachers & Writers Magazine. The piece offers three ways to use found poetry as an accessible and inclusive entryway into poetry.

Give it a read!

Example of a black out poem. A page from a book about birds has large strokes of black blocking out specific lines of words, images, and design details. The remaining words form a poem and in the bottom left is the picture of a bird.

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Sonnet Challenge

For Valentine’s Day I challenged one of my workshops to write sonnets.

This was my first time teaching a form in any of my workshops. I’ve done haiku scavenger hunts before, but those were more about the experiential nature of haiku than any of the form’s diction and thematic restrictions.

To start this sonnet lesson I explained that some poems have rules, which piqued the attention of a couple poets in the room right away. We’ve been writing together as a group for almost two years now and in that time I’ve pretty much let them free write, the exceptions being group projects like our holiday cookie tags, so this was something new.

I had Sonnet and the numbers one through fourteen listed downward on the board as a visual for everyone to reference. I decided to start with the basic rule, that a sonnet is a poem with fourteen lines. While rhyme and meter play a big role in the Shakespearean Sonnet (which is the form I was basing this introduction on) it didn’t quite feel right to dive into that. I wanted this to be a challenge for the poets, but not overwhelm them. Furthermore, I wanted them to be engaged and intrigued and bogging them down with all the details of form would have dimmed the excitement.

on a white dry erase school board the word Sonnet is written at the top with a vertical stack of numbers 1-14 underneath it. All the writing is in blue.

Next I talked about the theme, sonnets are about someone or something you really like. I got a lot of “blehs” from this as the thought of writing a love poem, or “love letter” as one of the poets said, was off putting. I told them though that it didn’t have to be addressed to someone, it could simply be fun and addressed to a video game the loved, a show, a book, anything is sonnet worthy.

Once that was established and no one felt like they had to write a love poem, the poets set to work and it was amazing! They tackled the challenge so well! Even the poet who was so opposed to writing “love letters” started with Sonic, but ended with an amazing ode to family, friends, and school.

One note, I started off just letting them free write, but it became quickly apparent that encouraging the poets to number one to fourteen down the side of their paper (like I had up on the board) provided a good frame of reference. Aside from this addition to their papers and occasional encouragement from the teachers and therapists supporting the group not much scaffolding took place.

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Snowball Dialouge

New article over in Whale Road Literary Review on “Snowball Dialouge” a writing technique I’ve used with students in the Sensorimotor Poetry Workshops.

While this article talks specifically about moments of peer learning in the workshop space, I've also used this as a strategy to help communicate and co-regulate with students in the day-to-day as well.

It's a good back pocket tool for any educator!

Black text on a white background. The top has the masthead for Whale Road Review with four lines right aligned indicating an online drop down menu. Below that masthead is the start of the article with “Snowball Dialogue” in bold, black title lettering and the article lettering beginning in paragraph form below.

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