The role of elementary school teachers in encouraging children in poetic composition is the focus of this handbook, one of a series that offer suggestions for teaching. With the assumption that given proper guidance, all children are capable of poetic composition, this teachers' guide introduces poetic composition in three interdependent stages: the evocative, the language precision, and the sharing. The evocative stage gives primary attention to stimulating the child's appreciation of his own language ability; the language precision stage has as its primary goal versitility in organizing language and form, to improve ways of stating ideas and feelings; and the sharing stage involves the search for appropriate means to help the children share their poetic selection with others. The handbook is comprised of the following chapters: Uncovering Children's Poetic Composition; Recognizing the Nature of Poetic Composition; Espousing Values of Poetic Composition to Children; Organizing Conditions for Poetic Composition; Starting the Poetic Composition Process; Writing Out of Experience; Writing Into Experience; Using Language Poetically; Arranging Extemporaneous Poetic Patterns; Introducing Predesigned Verse Forms; Dignifying Children's Poetic Compositions; and Sharing Poetic Composition. (DB)