In teaching poetry writing, other forms of art, and even courses in the social and natural sciences, images and hypotheses can best be generated by the use of free association. This process induces from the preconscious mind the raw material that makes possible the success of craft. (Author)

Describes a model for a poetry writing project that aspires to transform students into sounder thinking, more sensitive human beings. The project, which was used in a grade eight class, includes writing and editing original poetry, class discussion, and creating books of student poetry. (KH)

Discusses the experiences of students as they try to turn pictures in their head into poetry. Describes how the poetry of popular music can provide stimulus for student poetry. (HTH)

Discusses criteria to use when evaluating poetry written by children and contains numerous examples of poetry written by children. (DF).

Tests were given to a nine-year-old boy to establish the constraints operating when he was writing poetry. The tests involved writing cloze tests on poems by poet Ted Hughes and on a poem the boy had written a year earlier. The boy was also asked to write a poem and then to discuss what he was thinking as he wrote. The following constraints were…

Poetic writing involves thinking processes which are partially, and perhaps totally, different from the thinking processes involved in transactional writing and which are useful in learning across the entire range of organized knowledge, including the typical subjects in the school curriculum. This paper defines expressive, transactional, and…

The author suggests that the preconscious is the true locus of significant prose because of its greater amount of freedom to gather, compare, and rearrange ideas, and that the ultimate challenge to teachers of composition is to give freedom to their students' preconscious processes. (KC)

Asserting that the mind of the creative reader operates precisely like the mind of the creative writer, the author examines theories of the psychology of poetic composition, in order to draw implications for the teaching of literature. (SJL)

While the chapters of this book present a variety of perspectives, they share the common goal of redirecting and revitalizing research on written composition. The authors review research on written discourse and the composing process and raise questions regarding information and skills that teachers and researchers need to consider. The chapters…

The loss of richness and multiplicity of word meaning can result in a decline in the metaphoric activity of the mind. A technologically-oriented civilization pressures students to devalue word connotation in favor of denotative exactitude. To counteract this tendency, teachers should adopt for themselves and instill in their students a regard for…