ABSTRACT
I have been hinting at the power of lists for some pages. Here is the idea at its most raw:
Things I like
Pretty girls flying doves lovely poems bold men fizzy drinks summer holidays and lots of friends
Jade (9)
I remember the writer of this poem well. She was on a course for children who wanted to be writers, but after a day and a half she had produced almost nothing that she or I were pleased with. She was not a fluent writer, and had been taught somehow or other that mechanical issues in language were all-important. So she was frightened of making mistakes. After a few false starts which distressed us both, I asked her simply to make a list of ‘things she liked’, and she came up with this little poem. It delighted her, and pleased me and the other children. I extended this idea by asking other children to write lists about things that they like, but leaving alternate lines blank. Then I ask them to fill in the empty lines with clauses beginning ‘because … ’:
Things I like
Horses running because they are fast.
