In October I'll be delivering a 90-minute lecture/workshop to teachers of literacy at a conference and of course I've decided that my topic will be poetry -- specifically, ways that poetry can be used to engage students and improve their literacy (both functional, ie. how to write, and critical, ie. how to read/interpret/not believe everything that's presented at face value).
Many of these teachers have classes full of adults who have missed out on fundamental schooling, or 15-19 year-olds who have become disengaged from the regular system. I know that I've had great success with my students (both teenage and adult), but that's partly because I know poetry inside out and backwards. Many teachers -- indeed, most -- don't. I want to fix that.
Many people here comment on how much they don't know and what they learn from sites like this (well, really only from this site, since ours is the best
). I'd really appreciate input from you folks on what you think would have been interesting/useful/awesome to learn about poetry while you were in high school. What would have made poetry work better for you?
Many of these teachers have classes full of adults who have missed out on fundamental schooling, or 15-19 year-olds who have become disengaged from the regular system. I know that I've had great success with my students (both teenage and adult), but that's partly because I know poetry inside out and backwards. Many teachers -- indeed, most -- don't. I want to fix that.
Many people here comment on how much they don't know and what they learn from sites like this (well, really only from this site, since ours is the best
). I'd really appreciate input from you folks on what you think would have been interesting/useful/awesome to learn about poetry while you were in high school. What would have made poetry work better for you?
It could be worse