Tamara is deep in thought as shesifts through the poems in herPoetry Folder. Quietly, she mutters“No way” as she puts poems in onepile, and “Yes, yes” as she placespoems she wants to publish in ourclass poetry magazine in a differentpile. A thoughtful poem about herbeloved cat that recently died sits inthe “No way” pile, as does a seriouspoem about her relationship withher grandmother. A poem aboutspringtime sits alone in the “Yes,

yes” pile. Intrigued, I ask Tamaraabout her criteria for selecting apoem to share with an audience.

Amy: Hey, Tamara. I notice thatyou’ve been thinking carefullyabout which poem you want toshare. Tell me why you decidedon the springtime poem.

Tamara: Well, some of my other poemsare sad or kind of serioussounding. I think the springpoem is fun and everyonewould like to hear it. It would

make them think about all thehappy things in spring. Kidslike to hear about happythings. And so do grown-ups.

After similar interactions with otherchildren in my first-grade class thatweek, I found myself wondering whychildren were rejecting poems withserious subject matter in favor of“happy” poems. I became intriguedabout children’s selection criteriawhen choosing poems to share withan audience. I was curious about

Happy Poems: Children’s Awareness of Audience

Amy Walter

A teacher explores why the criteria that children use for

selecting poetry to share with an audience differ from her

expectations.

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why the criteria used by the childrenoften seemed different from mine.The children seemed to consciouslythink about their audiences’ prefer-ences and wonder, “Would thispoem make their audience (peers/parents) happy? Would it make themsmile? Would it make them sad?” I decided to interview them abouttheir criteria for choosing a poem togo in our poetry magazine. I wantedto find out more about children’sperceptions of audience needs, andhow this affected their choice of apoem to share.

CHILDREN’S AWARENESSOF AUDIENCE

Despite arguments that young chil-dren don’t have the sociocognitivecapacity to imagine or anticipatereaders’ beliefs and expectations,research on children’s awareness ofaudience indicates that children asyoung as six do indeed have adeveloping sense of audience (Wollman-Bonilla, 2001). Britton(1975) found, however, that theaudience students most frequentlyaddress in their writing is theirteacher. In my opinion, an audienceof one person is not enough and isnot representative of audiences forwriting beyond the classroom. Kroll(1978) argues, “When children real-ize that peers, instead of a teacher,will read their compositions, anaudience of ‘significant others’ iscreated, making audience sensitivitymore meaningful. Powerful learningoccurs when children experiencethe failure or success of their wordsto communicate to peers” (p. 831).

Some theorists argue that the verycreation of a text is shrouded inthoughts about the potentialaudience’s reaction. “Children wantto try out texts on each otherbecause texts are social, andbecause the response of an audienceis essential to the creation of a text”

(Swaim, 2002, p. 339). Given thatthe purpose of writing is to commu-nicate with an audience (Strange,1988), I believe that children shouldbe afforded regular forums for shar-ing their writing with peers and thewider community, through regularin-class shares, writing celebrationswith parents, magazines, and schoolgatherings. Calkins and Parsons(2003) point out, “As teachers, weneed to move heaven and earth tobe sure every child knows what it isto be a published author. Help chil-dren make their poems public byposting them in the community andreading them to various audiences”(p. 131).

Hubbard (1985) found thatpublishing had beneficial resultsfor second graders’ perceptions ofaudience. In her study, studentswho published their writingviewed the readers’ reactions as important and helpful. Interest-ingly, Wollman-Bonilla (2001)found that first-grade childrencould demonstrate audienceawareness when they were writingfor a real purpose and for anauthentic and familiar audience(peers, parents) (p. 188). Thismakes sense to me. My firstgraders were showing me thatthey were consciously thinkingabout what their audience wouldmake of their poem. Indeed, Wollman-Bonilla argued that “first graders addressed their audience directly, drawing on

their understandings of theirreader’s experiences, expectations,and beliefs” (p. 188).

LAUNCHING OURPOETRY STUDY

The decision to embark on a poetrystudy with first graders made sensefrom many perspectives. The childrenhad had many experiences singingplayground chants, jump rope songs,and nursery rhymes in kindergartenand first grade. They had used alliter-ation and tongue twisters and gainedmuch experience manipulatinglanguage as part of our work withphonemic awareness. By the timeJanuary came around, they wereready for a more formal and specificgenre study. Having been surroundedby words as music, as well as havingfun playing with language, a poetrystudy would build on theirexperiences with language play.

I immersed children in the readingand writing of different forms ofpoetry for three months. Minilessonscentered around writing techniquesand discussions of poems I readaloud from mentor poets and myformer students. Calkins and Parsons(2003) discuss the importance of cre-ating a context for poetry thatinvites children to pay attention tothe details of their lives in freshways. I set up my classroom as amuseum with objects such as leaves,flowers, rocks, and gems. Iencouraged children to observe theworld through a poet’s eyes and togo beyond scientific observation(Calkins, 2001). I told children thatrather than writing “I see a round,broken rock with lots of lines acrossit,” which sounds like a scientificobservation, they could write some-thing like “the rock perches on thetable. Cut up into too many pieces, itlooks cracked like Humpty Dumpty.”

The children observed objects at theirtables and through a poetry window

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I found myselfwondering why

children were rejectingpoems with serious

subject matter in favorof “happy” poems.

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in one corner of the classroom. Nextto a window, I placed a small tableand an assortment of paper andwriting materials. Children couldchoose to sit at the table and lookout of the poetry window to findinspiration from the view. I encour-aged the children to write from theirobservations. Children also tooknotes in poetry notebooks that werecarried home as homework, andvoluntarily took their observationsonto the playground. They practicedlooking at ordinary objects throughfresh eyes, and I shared poetry withthem in which poets commented on common everyday objects. Karla Kuskin, a well-knownchildren’s poet, discusses this kind of observation:

If you are going to draw, you have tolook at that leaf and see the way thelines come down. You have to see theway the leaf is shaped and the wayeach plant grows differently. Whenyou’re drawing, you’re drawingdetails and that’s what you’re writ-ing about too. (Kuskin, cited inHeard, 1999, p. 94)

Our study of the craft of poetrytook place daily. Each sessionbegan with a minilesson focusingon an area that I felt would benefitthe children, including seeing theworld through a poet’s eyes,listening for line breaks, showingnot telling, looking for precisewords, contrasting ordinary andpoetic language, contrastingpoems with prose, and revisingand editing poems (Calkins & Par-sons, 2003). During the minilesson,we listened to and looked at avariety of different types of poems.These included poems by mentorpoets such as Shel Silverstein, Dr.Seuss, Valerie Worth, Zoe RyderWhite, and Naomi Shihab Nye. Wealso looked closely at poems writ-ten by other children. Routman

(2000) states that children do notsee themselves as poets until theyread poetry written by other chil-dren. After reading any poem, Ialways asked the children, whom Ireferred to as “poets,” what theynoticed about the poem and whatthe writer was doing, includingwhat they thought of the topic,word choice, punctuation, linebreaks, rhythm, and ending lines.

We usually had a share time at theend of each poetry session. Oppor-tunities for sharing poems writtenwith friends, teachers, and parents,as well as the larger community,were integral to this unit. I had asign-up sheet for those whowanted to share a poem, becausethere were too many to hear inone session. The poems were quiteshort, so we always listened topoems throughout the day, even if we ran out of time during ourpoetry session. I made sure therewere opportunities available forevery child who wanted to share a poem. In this way, their poetryhad an audience who was encour-aged to respond with positivecomments. The sharing of poemsorally was a celebratory andaffirming experience for the poets in my class. Routman (2000)states that, “Sharing a poem con-gratulates the writer, affirms theeffort, serves as a possible rolemodel for other students, andencourages the student to continuewriting” (p. 21).

There were other avenues for chil-dren to share their poetry as well.Twice during our poetry study,children selected one poem fromtheir poetry folders to be typed for

inclusion in our class poetry anthol-ogy. Typing a poem with the childwho wrote it sitting beside me pro-vided an opportunity to conferabout the poem. In the words of Ray(2004), “Interaction around typingup a poem on the computer is agood teaching opportunity if theteacher is there when it happens.Children like to play with optionsfor line breaks, white space, and

also with capitalization,punctuation, and font as theirpoems are being typed up. We canhelp them think through thisdecision making as they do this” (p. 218).

The anthology was kept in ourclassroom library and was a popu-lar reading selection. In addition,towards the end of the unit, eachchild chose one poem to illustrateand type for the first-grade poetrymagazine we would distribute toparents and other classes, as wellas to community members. Weeven organized a special poetrycelebration, where parents came tohear children read from theirpoetry folders and each received acopy of the magazine.

Interestingly, when sharing poetryduring a poetry share or for ourclass magazine or poetry anthology,the poems that some childrenselected were not the ones that Ihad expected. Intrigued, I inter-viewed children about why theywere excluding certain poems fromconsideration for sharing. Theirresponses seemed to fall into threedistinct categories, all of whichindicated an awareness of audienceas the major criteria for poetryselection.

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I interviewed children about why they were excludingcertain poems from consideration for sharing.

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FIRST GRADER’S CRITERIAFOR SELECTING A POEMTO SHARE

Criterion #1: Funny, silly, happy

The first criteria that children usedto select their poems for sharingwas that the poem be funny, fun,happy, or humorous. Children saidthings such as:

“I chose a poem that is funny andmakes people laugh.”

“I like to read a poem that makesfunny sounds.”

“I like to read poems about myfriends so they will smile.”

“It’s just a really funny poem. Peoplewould like to hear it.”

“It’s not a good idea to read reallysad poems all the time. You shouldread happy ones, too.”

The idea of children enjoyinghappy, silly poems is not new. Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, and jokebooks are all popular readingchoices and sources of inspirationfor first graders. Andrea Perry(Bagert, Wayland, Koertge, & Perry,2003), a children’s poet, argues thatpoetry is more fun than prose, stat-ing, “Poetry can be so entertainingwhen it is done well. From the firsttime I ever heard a rhymed storytold Seuss style, I have loved theplayfulness of it.”

Choosing poems to share that makeother people smile or laugh is notunique to first graders; the desire tomake others happy is surely part ofthe human condition. Whenchildren break into uproariouslaughter as a classmate reads alouda newly written poem, they seem toshare the perspective of a renownedadult poet: “Nothing makes me hap-pier than performing a poem for anaudience and feeling the room swellwith emotion” (Bagert et al., 2003).

This criterion of happy poems ledchildren to choose poems for shar-ing such as this one:

Cathryn

Makes me laughShe tells funny joke

And when she starts laughingHer cheeks turn red

And I start laughing tooThen my cheeks are red

I am happy—Sara

This same desire led them to overlookwhat they considered sad poems toshare with others. Take, for example,this poem:

Inside My Heart

Inside my heartWhen I am happyThere is a tsunami That never happened.—Avi

Avi wrote this poem in January, inresponse to my invitation that chil-dren try writing a poem beginningwith, “Inside my heart there is . . .”When I asked Avi to tell me abouthis poem, he said, “I wish that thetsunami had never happenedbecause lots of people died and losttheir homes.” I doubt that we wouldhave had this conversation withoutan invitation for writing, a blankpiece of paper, and the knowledgethat it is okay to write about what-ever is on your mind. Naomi ShihabNye states that, “Sometimes there isno one to listen to what you mightreally want to say at a certainmoment. The paper will always lis-ten” (cited in Moyers, 1999, p. 8).

Avi was proud of his poem. However,when asked which poem he wouldlike to submit to our class poetrymagazine, he chose a poem about avacation in Amaganset. I asked himwhy he chose that one over thetsunami poem and he replied that thevacation poem was “really fun.”

Jada’s poem about Iraq was writtenon the same day as Avi’s. Jada toldme that she wrote this poem becauseshe “thinks about the war every day,and I know that it is making a lot ofpeople lose their lives.” She said thatshe has “seen lots of banners andpins around New York City’’ andthat she “wanted to use that idea tomake up a poem about how much Ihate war.” Some weeks later, whenJada had to select one poem for ourclass poetry magazine, she skippedright over the Iraq poem. When Iasked her why, she said, “It’s a reallydepressing poem. I think poems thatgo in magazines should be happy.”

Iraq

Bullets blastingFunerals comePeople, do what’s rightSo, war no more!—Jada

I agree with Alice Walker, who statesthat poetry breaks through “the skinof suffering in which children areoften imprisoned; silent, confused,scared. A child’s poetry is anintimate, trusting gift to anyone whowishes to ‘read’ her heart” (cited inHeard, 1999, p. 3). What I noticed,however, is that while some childrenwere willing to share personal andtender, often sad, poems with ateacher, they did not choose to sharethese poems with peers. They sawtheir peers as an audience whofound a different kind of poemappealing. I am glad that Avi andJada felt the freedom and comfort towrite poems from the heart, but Iwas baffled as to why they chosenot to share these poems. Iwondered if their peers had madefun of a sad or serious poem, andthought hard about the kind of envi-ronment I had created for sharingpoetry. I worried that maybe myclassroom environment was sendinga message that I did not intend. Iwanted the message to be that “all of

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our students’ lives matter, thatevery voice is worth listening to,and that students can take risks inwriting poems about whatever theirheart urges them to write” (Heard,1999, p. 3).

After reflecting on our classroom cli-mate, I came to believe that theirdecision was a personal one madeon the basis of their own criteria forthe kind of poems that they believetheir peers valued. I did talk to Avi,Jada, and other children who wereembracing the “happy, fun poem”criteria and pointed out that we hadread aloud many sad poems frompublished books and that thosepoems are just as valid for sharingwith others. I tried to carefully selectpoems to read aloud that representeda wide spectrum of moods, emotions,and subject matter. In this way, I washoping that children would findsomething to identify with from thispoetry that would influence whatthey chose to write and share,including poems that were happy,silly, funny, sad, melancholy, andperhaps somewhere in between.

Criterion #2: Long, or at least not too short

Not by intention, but by accident,poems I read aloud to the childrenwere usually at least five or six lineslong, and often even longer. Thechildren grew to associate a poemthat was shorter than six lines as a“short poem.” Many first gradershave a conception that the more youwrite, the better your piece is. I triedto challenge the misconception byfocusing on the writing devices usedwithin a poem, rather than its length.Many of the poems that I read tochildren incorporated similes andmetaphors to convey their points.Although I didn’t use the words sim-ile or metaphor, we spent time look-ing at mentor poems and discussinghow poets use comparisons to gettheir points across more clearly and

in an interesting way. Lewis Thomas,a scientist, sees children as strongusers of language for whom meta-phors are natural, saying, “Webecome specialized for this uniquelyhuman function in the early years ofchildhood, perhaps losing this mech-anism as we mature” (cited by Heard,1999, p. 74).

I was impressed with children’s useof metaphor and simile in theirpoetry as reflected in this poem:

Computer

A computer is likeA small square monsterThat likes to Help people.—Danny

Danny is a methodical student wholoves to use the computer at anyopportunity. His decision to write apoem about a computer made sensebecause I tell children to write aboutwhat they care about, what theylove. When I asked Danny to tell meabout his poem, he told me that“most of the time computers are veryhelpful but they are like a monsterbecause they sometimes make youlose your work or don’t really helpyou. Sometimes they can make youangry.” Danny was very pleased withhis poem and seemed to enjoytaking this leap to see the likenessbetween things (Heard, 1999). How-ever, Danny did not want to submitthis poem for publication, sayingthat it was “just a little poem; I wantto publish a bigger poem.”

The idea of wanting to publish a“big, or bigger poem” was alsoexpressed by Anna, who wrote thispoem that uses comparison to makea point.

Rock

A rock is like a sculpture That Doesn’t know where it’s going.—Anna

When I asked Anna if she would liketo put “Rock” in our class poetrymagazine, she said that she felt “thispoem is too little. I should put some-thing bigger in there.” I asked herwhy and she replied, “Because it’stoo short; I have done longer thingswhich are probably better.”

This idea of length as a factor inselecting a poem was a criterion thatI noticed many children mentioningto me. In response, I read a quote tothe children from the poet RonKoertge (Bagert et al., 2003), “I liketo write poems because they areshort and I usually get a good idea ofwhat one is about in a single sitting.”I also emphasized to Anna, Danny,and others that many of theirfavorite poems in class were short,and that one of the great thingsabout writing poetry is not having towrite a long piece.

Explaining to the poets in my classthat poetry is about concentration,not superfluous text, did lead to lessreluctance to share the brieferpoems. I emphasized that poetry isabout concentration, which oftenforces the poet to zoom in on onefeeling, thing, or emotion, toconcentrate on one taste or smell ormoment. I also found some short,sharp poems to read to the class;they demonstrated that a poem’slength does not necessarily correlateto its strength and allowed me topraise the short poems that childrenhad written, thus raising the statusof short poems in their eyes.

Criterion #3: Shows off a skill or teaches something

The third criterion that wasprevalent in children’s decisionsabout which poems to share seemedto be whether or not they felt thattheir poem either offered an exampleof a writing skill used in poetry wehad studied or imparted ideas orinformation of use to others. On the

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day that Harry wrote a poem abouta plant, he had been carefullystudying one that had been placedin the middle of his worktable.Harry told me he liked “being ableto compare the plant to a building;it makes me feel like I’m making amovie in my mind.” Harry chose thepoem to share with the class duringa poetry share and also wanted tosubmit it to our poetry magazine.He said that “it’s a good one toshare because they can almost see itin their minds, like a picture, justlike you showed us.” Harry wasreferring to a minilesson at the startof the unit where I asked thechildren to close their eyes and takea picture in their minds of whatthey were writing about. In thisway, they could hold onto itsappearance for as long as theyneeded or wanted to. They couldlook at it and study it to help themwith their writing.

Plant

A plant is likeA building in theFuture.The leaves are platforms.The dirt is the lobby.—Harry

Nellie chose the following poem forsubmission to a class anthology ofpoems because she told me that, “it’san important poem about somethinghappening. A lot of kids don’t reallyknow what the ozone layer is and Ithink that this poem could teachthem.” Her choice reflected myencouragement to the class to writepoems about what they feel is true:

Ozone Layer

Cars polluting up up andTrains, boats, airplanesFire trucks, motorcyclesUp, up and up breakingThe ozone layerNever seen again.—Nellie

Since February was Black Historymonth, we read a lot of Civil Rightsbooks at the same time as ourpoetry study. When I asked Becca ifshe would like to share her poemwith the class, she said she would,because it was “relevant, and thekids can learn about Martin LutherKing and what he did. It’s kind ofan educational poem.”

Martin

Martin didn’t use hate Or fistsHe used wordsAnd now we’re all equal—Becca

Poetry provided a safe place for firstgraders to express feelings,understandings, and views withinour classroom community. Somerecurring topics were friendship,family, pets, war, pollution, globalwarming, tsunami, and 9/11. NaomiShihab Nye states that poetry“makes us slow down and listencarefully to a few things we havereally heard, deep inside. For me,poems usually begin with truethings—people, places, experiences—but quickly ride off into that otherterritory of imagination, which livesalongside us as much as we willallow in a world that likes to paytoo much attention to facts” (citedin Moyers, 1999, p. 8).

Pearl came to me asking if shecould share her poem with thegroup. I asked her why she waseager to share and she told me, inalmost hushed tones, that “theGrand Canyon is a really specialplace and people should reallyknow about it, and what it’s likethere. It’s actually one of the mostbeautiful places in the world.” Sheread the poem slowly and withemotion during our poetry share,evoking a sense of mystery andintrigue. Weeks later, I found outfrom her mother that Pearl had not

been to the Grand Canyon. She hadheard many stories about herparents’ trip there, and had beenasking her mother relentlessly everyday if she could go. After seeing thispoem in our class poetry magazine,Pearl’s mom told me, “We may haveto take her there.”

Grand Canyon

I walked down theGrand CanyonIt madeMe feel specialIt made me feel specialWhy?because I was more than me.—Pearl

Writing this poem allowed Pearl toexpress her feelings in a new way,and the poem reinforced themessage she had been trying to getacross to her parents. This desire hadbecome a poem inside of Pearl, wait-ing to be dug out. As Gallasi notes,“Our real poems are already in us,and all we can do is dig” (cited inGrossman, 1982, Intro). Heard (1999)agrees, noting that poetry helps chil-dren “reach into their well offeelings—their emotional, internallives and thoughts, like no otherform of writing can” (p. xvii).

FINAL REFLECTIONS

I often read aloud the poemValentine for Earnest Mann byNaomi Shihab Nye (1994) during ourpoetry study. Children particularlylike her statement that “poemshide/in the bottoms of our shoes,they are sleeping. /They are theshadows drifting across our ceilingsthe moment we wake up” (p. 48).With their poet’s eyes, newfoundwriting techniques, and poetryobservation notebooks, my firstgraders found poems to write, revise,share, and publish. Their voices wereevident in the poetry that theycrafted. First graders wrote with as

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much voice as any adult, if notmore. Just as children had personaland unique styles of writing, sothey had personal and sometimesunique reasons for sharing theirpoetry with others. In my individualconferences with children, wediscussed their criteria for sharing.Sometimes it was possible toencourage new ways of thinkingabout which poems would lendthemselves to being shared withothers. Mostly, these interviewshelped me to understand eachpoet’s reasons and justification forselections and exclusions.

The crucial part of the process forme, and hopefully for the children,was that I asked. I remainedcurious. Why this poem and notanother? As we have seen, firstgraders can indeed demonstrateaudience awareness. The selectioncriteria used by these first-gradestudents shows explicitly that theywere thinking about how other peo-ple would perceive what they wrote,based on their ideas about theiraudience as people and asresponders. With teacher guidance,their ideas about audience (“Theywon’t want to hear a sad poem” or“This poem is too short”) were chal-lenged and expanded. My hope isthat the next time they are consid-ering sharing a poem with an audi-ence, the questions “Why?” and“Why not?” will circle around intheir heads.

Wollman-Bonilla (2001) points outthat “even very young children andbeginning writers can demonstrateaudience awareness. Teacherinstruction to consider audience, aswell as writing for real purposesand for an authentic and responsive

audience, also help to develop audi-ence awareness” (p. 198). It seemsto me that to support children’sgrowing sense of audienceawareness, they should be givenfrequent opportunities to write foraudiences and to have theaudiences respond to what theyhave written. Teachers shouldensure that audiences are largerthan just themselves. Audiencesshould include parents, peers, and,where possible, the widercommunity. In this way, childrenwill learn from real experienceabout writing for an audience.Graves (1983) has long recognizedchildren’s awareness of audience,stating, “Publishing contributes to asense of audience. Children envisionthe appearance of a piece in print,and the teacher, parents or friendsturning the pages” (p. 54). Knowingthis, it is not a surprise, then, tofind that first graders have theirown criteria for selecting poems toshare with an audience.

ReferencesBagert, B., Wayland, A. H., Koertge, R., &

Perry, A. (2003, April). Poet roundtable foryoung audience. Retrieved on July 15,2005, from www.AuthorsonTheWeb.com.

Britton, J. (1975). A report on thedevelopment of writing abilities (11–18):The Schools Council Project on the Writ-ten Language of 11–18 Year Olds. London:Macmillan.

Calkins, L. (2001). The art of teaching read-ing. New York: Addison Wesley.

Calkins, L. M., & Parsons, S. (2003). Units ofstudy for primary writing/poetry: Power-ful thoughts in tiny packages.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Graves, D. (1983). Writing: Teachers and chil-dren at work. Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann.

Grossman, F. (1982). Getting from here tothere: Writing and reading poetry.Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Heard, G. (1999). Awakening the heart:Exploring poetry in elementary and middleschool. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hubbard, R. (1985). Second graders answerthe question “Why publish?” The ReadingTeacher, 38(7), 658–662.

Kroll, B. (1978). Developing a sense of audi-ence. Language Arts, 55, 828–831.

Moyers, B. (1999). Fooling with words: A celebration of poets and their craft. NewYork: William Morrow.

Ray, K. W. (2004). About the authors.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Routman, R. (2000). Kids’ poems: Teachingfirst graders to love writing poetry. NewYork: Scholastic.

Shihab Nye, N. (1994). Red suitcase.Rochester, NY: Boa.

Strange, R. (1988). Audience awareness:When and how does it develop? ERICDigest, 4. Retrieved April 12, 2006, fromhttp://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/2a/0d/1a.pdf.

Swaim, J. (2002). Laughing together in carni-val: A tale of two writers. Language Arts,79, 337–346.

Wollman-Bonilla, J. (2001). Can first-gradewriters demonstrate audience awareness?Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 184–201.

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Author Biography

Amy Walter is a first-grade teacher atBrooklyn Friends School, Brooklyn, NewYork.

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