Craft Lesson 1

Line length and spacing: Janet Wong
Resource Material- Wong, Janet. Behind the Wheel: Poems about Driving. New York: McElderry, 1999.
Discussion- Poetry is written with special attention paid to line length and spacing. Using different line lengths can have a varied effect on a poem. The spacing between lines and sections can also impact how a poem is read. Janet Wong uses many different techniques in her book Behind the Wheel. Teachers can encourage students to experiment with different line lengths and spacing by demonstrating how Wong uses them to create different effects.
How to teach it- A good poem has a natural flow to it. Poems like “Jump-Start” and “Need to Read” have very short, concise lines that are grouped by placing an extra space in between the sections. Other poems like “Insurance for Teenage Drivers: A New Plan” and “Lessons in Braking” use a short topic line before going into further detail with the subject. Both of these poems also use medium size lengths in the subject area, which creates a flow that is easy to read. “Down the Narrow” and “ILMN444” take on a different approach and are written in paragraph form.
Students should be introduced to the different types of poetry and exposed to the terminology used to categorize poems (free form, prose, iambic pentameter, etc.). They could then compare and contrast the different poems Wong wrote, and determine the strengths and weaknesses for the types of forms. To get experience with the topic, students could write a poem and use the different line lengths for alternate versions. They could then be asked to evaluate which form they felt best expressed their perspective and why.