I believe that, with the right stimulus, all children can write good poems. Here are some of my favourite workshop ideas.
Hey, the gigging poets union might put out a contract on me for doing this! Why would you need a poet to visit your school now? Well, the answer is: experience, expertise, inspiration, enthusiasm, performance, entertainment, the ability to create on demand... fun!
I've been inventing, 'borrowing' and modifying creative writing ideas for years. I'm always looking out for something that guarantees success, a formula if you like. But, a formula is only the start, the hook to show children what's possible. Once reluctant writers get the taste of success, we need to encourage them to adapt and modify... to make the idea their own, and to create new ones.
I haven't classified the workshops by age; you're the best one to make that judgement. An idea that Y6's could work on individually, may be just as suitable for Y2's with the teacher acting as scribe.
Some of the ideas, such as Word Association and Word Morphing have more to do with having fun with words than with poetry as such. But, if we can just get children to fall in love with words...
Workshops
