Inside Poetry

Introduction

The typical Curriculum Camp study guide consists of a three to four week
calendar with lesson plans for teaching a core novel in an engaging and effective
way. As our title, “Inside Poetry,” suggests, this document represents a departure
from that norm. It is organized around that perennial challenge to the ingenuity of
the high school Language Arts teacher – bringing students into pleasurable proximity
with poetry.

Two forces drove our interest in working on this subject at this time. First, the
recent purchase by Portland Public Schools of new high school Language Arts
curricular materials means that teachers have available to them class sets of a
number of new texts featuring large, updated collections of poetry as well as a variety
of ways of approaching the subject. These materials include, most notably, two 12th
grade literature anthologies, Access Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and
Drama (Thomson-Wadsworth) edited by Barbara Barnard and David F. Winn and
Literature: an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing (Pearson-Longman)
edited by X.J Kennedy and Dana Gioia; as well as a longtime favorite text for
Advanced Placement classes that focuses on the teaching of poetry, Perrine’s Sound
& Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, Twelfth Edition (Thomson-Wadsworth) edited by
Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson; and, an imposing (over 1000 pages) collection of
poetry arranged by form, theme and context, The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry,
Shorter Edition (Thomson-Wadsworth) edited by Jay Parini. If nothing else, our group
realized, we had a small mountain of newly-acquired assets to consider as we
thought about our own practice of teaching poetry and how that might be improved.

The second force driving our interest was intrinsic. Too often, simply mention
the word “poetry” and high school students react negatively. Was that the inevitable
response to challenging material? Or was there more we could do as teachers to
build bridges to meet students where they already were in their explorations of
language? “Into Poetry” is our attempt to find that more considerate path.
Language Arts teachers, by and large, are already “into poetry” in the sense that they
genuinely enjoy reading and thinking about verse. Our task, however, is to help usher
young people “into poetry” in the other sense; to help them access the enriching
birthright of great literature from whatever starting point we find them.

This study guide does not present a Unit Calendar as if poetry could, or should
be taught, as a stand-alone topic. Our conviction is that students need opportunities
to learn how to read a poem deeply and carefully; how to make the connection
between idea, technique and effect. At the same time, the surest way to kill poetry
as a source of spontaneous enjoyment for young people is to subject every poem to
rigorous analysis; or, as Billy Collins describes our poetry training regimen, to “beat it
with a hose.” Teachers should not be afraid to let poems speak for themselves. Part
of our job is to give students lots of opportunities to encounter poems on their own
terms; to

Accordingly, this study guide has been organized in two main sections. The
first section called “Into Poetry” describes ways to expose students to a lot of poetry
Inside Poetry
Introduction
in an enjoyable way throughout the school year. It contains lessons that help
students explore the connections between the popular culture they inhabit and the
richly diverse tradition of poetry. The second section called “Deepenings” provides
lesson plans that open up specific poems using a variety of powerful teaching
techniques that directly invite students to construct their own meanings. In both
sections we mine the new curriculum resources acquired by Portland Public Schools
to support innovative teaching strategies.

We hope you find at least some of the ideas and lesson plans for teaching
poetry in this study guide helpful in your own practice. Emily Dickinson said, “If I feel
physically as if the top of my head were taken off, that is poetry.” See you in surgery!