The Elementary Years
When I wrote my very first poem, I was five years old. I have no recollection of it, but apparently I had the confidence of an aged poet in writing it, because there are no corrections marked, and I still have it in my saved schoolwork papers today. In fact, sometime in my elementary school years, I learned quite a few different formats for poetry and enjoyed experimenting with all of them, eventually creating an illustrated booklet that included my favorite compositions.
Because during these years the focus of my learning poetry was simply to learn about the different possible formats and experiment with them, I enjoyed creating poetry. It was fairly easy for me to do, and fun. I think that students in middle school and high school would also enjoy this if we gave them the freedom to experiment without punishing them if they fail in their first attempts. It doesn't seem right to expect them to be good at a new form of writing the first time they try it. It is only through extended practice of a new skill that we become good at doing anything. This also strikes true with the philosophy of Nancy Atwell.