To develop an adequate methodology for helping children to express themselves poetically, two alternative programs for the teaching of poetry writing were developed. The "free" approach, which attempted to encourage the writing of poetry through exposure to "good" poetry, consisted of a series of poems arranged around selected elements of poetry and read aloud by the teacher as a stimulus to class consideration and writing. The "semi-structured" lessons, also open-ended, consisted of activities planned to increase facility with words and develop divergent means of self-expression. Both methods centered around elements considered essential to a good poem, and each consisted of 15 half-hour lessons given over a 5-week period. Four grade 4 classes from a suburban community took part in the experiment--two classes receiving the "free" and two the "semi-structured" materials. The analysis of data indicated that (1) both the "free" and the "semi-structured" methods resulted in a statistically significant improvement in the children's ability to write poetry; (2) improvement was greater for those in the "semi-structured" group, and was not affected by differences in sex, intelligence, and language achievement; and (3) children with a low creativity score gained more from pretest to post-test than those with a high score. (Author)