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Ban this Atrocity!

Quite a few of my posts have been about things I passionately believe should be part of the modern classroom experience for our children, but today, I want to tackle something that should be banned from this day forward. It is something that we have all used, me included, and I bet that on World Poetry Day last week, there were quite a few of them produced up and down the country. If I were a contestant in the brilliant TV show 'Room 101', the dreaded Acrostic would be near the top of my list, and here's why...

Absolutely pointless

Creatively restrictive

Really boring to write

Only given as busy work

Spelling focused and not 'poetic' in any way

Task completion is the focus and not the quality of the poem

I hate writing them

Challenging, in no way whatsoever!

Can you see what I did there? I think I proved how boring acrostics can be! Samuel Taylor Coleridge described poetry as "the best words in the best order", which is the quote I would always share with children when we were writing poetry together.

I love this one, too, from William Wordsworth, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Neither of these quotes can be applied to the acrostic, and children are capable of so much more than this if we give them a chance, so let's #banacrostics

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