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Joseph Coelho

Language: English
Genre: Art, Identity, Poetry
Age group: 6-8, 9-11
Topics: Poetry

Joseph Coelho shares his latest picture book, If All The World Were, and leads you through an exciting activity to help you create your own poetry. You can also download our resource full of ideas and activities to help you explore and introduce poetry to children.  

If you would like to make your own folded book at home, like the little girl in If All The World Were, you can watch our video which shows you how to make a mini book(this link will open in a new window).

If you only do one thing...

We know that time can be tight, so here is just one activity you could do to engage pupils before or after watching Joseph Coelho's Authors Live event.

What is a poem? (LIT 2-01a, LIT 2-02a, LIT 2-04a, LIT 2-07a, LIT 2-09a, LIT 2-10a, LIT 2-11a)

Ask your pupils what they think a poem is. Traditionally we assume that poems must have rhythm and rhyme, but is that always the case? Do your pupils know of any poems or poets? Do they have any they like or dislike?

You can also show pupils poems by James Carter(this link will open in a new window). He sets the poems out as calligrams; poems that show their main theme or meaning in their shape. What do your pupils think of poems such as What to say if you meet a ghost or Viking O’clock? Does this challenge their ideas of what poetry can and should be?

Now show pupils John Henley reading his poem What a Poem’s Not(this link will open in a new window). John has worked through the alphabet and used each letter to describe what he thinks a poem is not. Do your pupils agree with his definition? What about what a poem is? Can they come up with a similar style list, using the alphabet, to describe what they think a poem is based on this and their previous discussion?

For more activities for using poetry in your classroom, see our Intrdocuing and exploring poetry resource below.

For shorter clips from this event visit the BBC Scotland Learning(this link will open in a new window) website.

A full transcript of this event is available to download.

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