One of my favorite poetic devices to use with first graders is one they’re already experts at: repetition. Repetition is a tool they’ve likely used to express themselves especially when they haven’t felt heard, a common (but perhaps not unique!) experience when you’re seven. Young children often use repetition on high alert, expressing the same phrase over and over. Poets use repetition in their works for many reasons, such as emphasis, rhythm, structure, emotionality and symbolic significance. Perhaps these two examples have more in common than we first realize!

Simply put, repetition in poetry is the use of words, phrases, lines, or stanzas more than once. It's a fundamental element of poetry and great for teaching poems with first grade students, because it can be easily understood before they have developed writing skills, which is also a benefit if you have ESL students. It is easier in some cases to explore than other poetic devices and creates an easily recognizable “success” that can generate excitement towards poetry.

A benefit to repetition is that it can engage a sensory and tactile experience, stimulating other forms of learning comprehension. There’s a reason many children’s poems utilize it: the repetition is attention grabbing, and many of these repeated phrases will become incidentally memorized, making poetry more engaging and accessible for kids.

Telephone Game:

First, explore repetition through play with a good old-fashioned game of telephone! Have your first graders line up and whisper a line of a poem in the ear of the first student. The first student then repeats the line to the second student, the second student to the third, and so on until you reach the end of the line. The final student then says the line aloud, and we all get to witness the evolution of word of mouth.

Here are some questions to engage with:

• What happens when you hear the same line multiple times?
• Do you hear it differently the third time than the first?
• What happened when our telephone phrase was repeated multiple times?
• Did we hear something different at the end?

Although the telephone game is not exactly how repetition performs in poems, it can reinforce the concept of repeating and how meaning can shift, which can create fun and memorable lesson plans that help beginning writers with accessible tools.

Bonus: Some fun new phrases may come out of this exercise. Write them down and see if you can make a collaborative poem together with the results.

Connecting it to Poems:

Now you are positioned to introduce the concept of repetition within a poem to your students. Start by explaining how repetition shows up in poetry: when words, phrases, and sounds are repeated. Show them examples of children’s poems with repetition in them.

Clapping to Repetition:

Next, try some interactive play with clapping. Find a poem that has repetition in it and ask them to clap when that phrase is repeated. If there is more than one repeating phrase, ask for a stomp or a different sound.

Afterwards, engage with these questions:

• Does it make the poem sound nice?
• Did it help us remember something?

Start small at first, and depending on your group, move into some deeper engagement with repetition, rephrasing these questions as needed for your audience: Why did the author choose that part to repeat? Did you find a new meaning? Is it creating a rhythm? Does it add emotion?

Reinforcing the concept:

Now try reading the poem without the repeating parts. Does it have the same effect? Do you like it more or less?

Bonus: Read a simple poem that does not have repeated parts and ask what line or phrase they would choose to repeat!

Getting young poets excited about writing creatively, especially first graders who are perhaps just a few steps into writing their own names, can set up a strong foundation for a future love of writing. Recognizing and engaging with poems is an incredible start! And repetition is a perfect tool to help. I am amazed at how contagious repetition becomes, how first graders can memorize poems and recite them, yelling and singing them to one another and playing with words. You may find that spending extra time in this stage of playful repetition softens the transition into individualized poem writing, which is the next step. And when you find a good poem with repetition in it, you just may hear your first graders shouting: Read it again! Read it again!

Sevi Giovanni is a poet, musician, teacher, and plant enthusiast who found their way to the Sonoran Desert through a deep admiration of desert flora and ecology. Sevi’s collection of poetry, Wash Sea Out of Hair and Drive, is published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Sevi enjoys holding an inviting space for young people to interrupt the rigidity of writing with play and curiosity.