Suitable for - I've used this model with children from Reception and Y1 (as a class or group poem in Reception, occasionally individually in summer term) to Y6. Many of the model poems I use in schools work just as well in Y1 or Y2 as well as Y6, although written responses in an older classes are usually much more varied. Older children may write with deliberate simplicity, elaborate on the original idea or subvert it entirely!

A poem about sounds - the ear of the model poem is a cat's, but the point of the poem is the variety of sounds it hears, not the cat. Other animals usually work less well because the writer concentrates on the animal rather than what it hears: a series of jungle or zoo sounds can be really monotonous! On the other hand, a poem about a pet rabbit and the sounds of the night garden might make a vivid frightening poem. Or it might be a child ill in bed listening to life going on normally outside... Some children may prefer to put the cat outside on a wall, perhaps basking in the sun, or high in a tree listening to the clouds.

Karl, who was Y4, evaded my initial scrutiny of the class I was working with and wrote "Boy In The Corner"/"What do you hear?/A teacher shouting and grumbling/.../Pencils writing their stories?/..." He then set off entirely on his own for the second part of the poem: "It's so very foggy and freezing cold/I can hear the wind/.../Literacy Hour is quiet and silent/I can hear the wind blowing at the trees/I want to sprint home!" (Other children might not have such a confident idea of what they want to write!)

A poem about a place - and also a time. The poem can be set at midnight, midday, in summer, a snowstorm etc. Usually the board poem is set in the school and we incorporate the sounds of the school and the name of the street outside or the local park. When children are writing on their own, usually they set the poem at home.

The sounds - The cat can hear loud and quiet sounds. These can be far away or close to, inside or outside, high up in the sky or underground. It may hear the sun shout "I've got my hat on today!" or a frog croak "Give me a kiss!" It can hear people think.

The board poem - initially we look for who or what makes the sounds, not for the sound itself - something human, something to do with the weather, another animal, something mechanical: the list down the board might be wind+people+a car+a bird. Then we work on each line, fleshing it with detail (we will have discussed the word "image" and talked about making word pictures), wondering what it sounds like read aloud. The bird may start as a robin but very soon we work out that crows and magpies and sea gulls are much more likely to appear on school playgrounds - and that birds don't just sing or build nests but land and drop in and wait for the end of playtime or have a gossip on a fence.

Finally we look at the verse as a whole. It often happens we've unconsciously and collectively started to write a winter poem or an end of day poem. In that case we revise the verse with that in mind.

Shape of poem and finishing - I like shaped verses so the model has 4 line verses: one image=one line. But poems often break out of their framework! I encourage exact images. Some children like to shape the poem with a narrative progression through the day, but many also like to stay with "perfecting" the individual images, in an almost haiku-like way.

Immediately before children write I read them several examples by other classes or individual children, for example - 

(Y4)
Cat In The Window
What do you hear?

The tick of a grandfather clock,
The small growl of a hamster,
The creak of a long thick floorboard.
You hear
The birds as they sing their songs in the morning light.

The wind as it rustles through the trees,
The tap as it drips in the bathroom sink.
You hear
Thunder rumbling miles away,
A glass smashing downstairs.

(Y1)
Cat In The Window
What do you hear?

A cricket jumping through the grass,
A dog barking at a stranger in the road,
The cat next door lapping its milk,
People licking lollipops.

A reader turning a book's pages,
The clock on the church tower ticking,
A basket ball bouncing in the school hall,
Children unzipping their book bags,
A frog croaking good morning! 

(Y6)
Cat In The Window
What do you hear?

A car chugging to a halt,
A baby spider dancing the flamenco.
Mist creeps up the hill,
A red balloon lingers over Edgmond Farm.

A Ford Mondeo is falling to piece in Yew Tree Drive,
Under Dad's lawn a mole is eagerly shovelling dirt.
A fierce storm comes up ahead
As an arachnid defies gravity up the bedroom curtains. 

(Y5 class)
Cat In The Window
What do you hear?

Rain pouring from the gutters,
The wind tossing clouds across the sky,
Water gurgling down a drain,
The TV aerial creaking above the roof.

Next door's dog shaking itself,
A crow fighting to cross from field to field,
Car windscreen wipers working hard,
A little stream tumbling over stones,
A patch of mud giving a glug of pleasure 

Variations - 'Cat In The Window' is based on a poem 
from one of my collections:

Cat in the window,
What do you see?

Cloud, wind, birds,
a bird in a tree.
The daffodils shivering
in the February breeze,
A puddle in the road
beginning to freeze.

Snow on the wind
Dusk in a cloud.
Leaves in a frenzy,
The bird's head cowed.
Winter - though the sun shines.
Blizzard, and the north wind's whine.

My poem is about what the cat "sees" rather than "hears" and occasionally in workshops our cat does the same -

Cat In The Window
What do you see?

Autumn leaves tossed to and fro across the patio,
A swing dripping with dew,
A crow's squiggle bent double above tree tops,
A piece of newspaper punched by the wind...

Poems dealing with sounds that might be useful in conjunction with 'Cat In The Window' -

Cat In The Window 
by Brian Morse (Picnic On The Moon, Turton and Chambers)

Hedgehog Hiding At Harvest In Hills Above Monmouth 
by Helen Dunmore (Secrets, Bodley Head)

The Listening Station 
by Chrissie Gittins (The Listening Station, Dagger Press)

© Brian Morse 2000 

Want to take your poetry teaching further?  
poetryclass poets are available for INSET - details here

| Home |      Poetry Lessons index page  |   Return to Top