The simple little strategy revolved around helping my son remember to look at all the things he was supposed to look at when considering poetry in exam conditions. (If a student gets a lower grade than expected is it because they didn't know what to do, knew what to do but didn't do it or knew what to do but forgot to do it? If it is the last one then you will 'coach' them for the exam using a very different strategy than for the other two!)
Because remembering what to was the issue for him, I just asked him to list the aspects of poetry he was supposed to be looking at which he said his teacher identified as follows:
Irony
Metaphor
Alliteration
Oxymoron
Onomatopoeia
Repetition
Syllables
Imagery
Theme
Next step is to number them off - if you know there are 9 it helps you remember to remember them all.
Then we turned them into a silly story (we have a great memory for stories that are bizarre, involve emotions, that are funny, that include yourself, that are multi-sensory and that include movement) along the lines of:
I was ironing a horse when an alligator came in pulled by a stupid ox. So I hit it repeatedly over the head with an encyclopaedia, laid it out on a slab and took a picture of it. And the me moral of the story is...
Hopefully you can see how keys words in the story correspond with the poetry aspects listed - even if it's just the first letters like alligator and alliteration - or the last like encyclopaedia and onomatopoeia.
So, you identify the difference between teaching children the skills to pass an exam and remembering to pass an exam and teach accordingly.