I’ve been trying to teach metaphors for weeks. You come along and within an hour they’ve cracked it.
Mr Foster, Year 5 teacher
[Dom] ran two workshop sessions at my school, children are still quoting his story in the playground a week later!
WESTMORLAND PRIMARY
Poetry can be beautiful, poetry can be ordinary, poetry can be funny, and poetry can be sad. A workshop or talk with Dom Conlon will challenge a student’s preconceptions about what makes a poem (does it have line lengths and stanzas, or can it be prose; does it need capital letters and punctuation) until we all come to realise that poems have TOOLS NOT RULES!
Whether it’s a talk about the ways in which poetry has inspired Dom to understand the universe and his own childhood coping with disability and bullying, or whether it’s a workshop in which the students interact and find surprising ways to express their ideas, Dom Conlon’s school visits are energetic and free-flowing.
Dom is a fantastically talented poet who has delivered a truly powerful message to our year 7 and 8 students. Dom’s sessions focus on the power of words and his poems “Local words” and “Bentback” truly inspired the children, many of whom left the session with a fresh attitude towards poetry. Since the session, our children have had a much more positive approach to reading and understanding poetry, finding poetry in music and even writing some of their own.
THORNLEIGH SALESIAN COLLEGE
Our workshop was very free-flowing with a lot of talk, which was extremely valuable and enjoyable and the children were 100% interested and engaged.
ST GREGORY’S PRIMARY SCHOOL
A typical primary school booking takes shape across three talks and one workshop.
YEAR 6 – What makes a poem a poem? How asking questions can be a route to some great writing. Demystifying poetry is the aim here and I end with two poems which I create in advance using prose from children who find writing to be a struggle. YOU wrote this, I tell them. I just found the poem in your writing.
YEAR 5 – Make Space for Poetry! How can writing help us understand the Universe? Using poems from my two space books, this session is full of facts from how the universe grew so big to how astronauts landed on the Moon (and 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing). Then we write the poem we’d send into space for aliens to find.
YEAR 2 – Stories from characters. Using my two picture books (I AM A GIANT, and I WILL EAT THE MOON) the class and I discuss how creating a character can lead to ideas for stories. This session helps children learn alternate ways plot and structure using a unique game of STORY SNAKES AND LADDERS!
WORKSHOP – Gather a group of mixed ages and personalities for a look at how to start writing a poem about heroes. Paying special attention to the details we build up a picture of what makes them THEM.
A typical secondary school booking includes four hour-long sessions for Years 7 and/or 8.
Let’s challenge our ideas of what poetry is. Is RAP poetry? Can a shopping list be poetry? What poetic devices can we use to help sharpen our message? Dom leads a lively discussion with performances from students and himself culminating in written starters for poetry which can be continued by the students for full feedback.
