From: Healey, Amy <ahealey>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 14:10:40 -0500

I have lots of favorite poets and poems, but the one I used successfully with a class was Poetry 180. This was a project of Billy Collins' when he was poet laureate, and the idea is to have a poem for every day of the school year. There is now a second edition of the book available, so you can get twice as many poems. The poems are also online at http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/

For those of you who don't like poetry, please read Collins' "Introduction to Poetry" which is the first poem in the collection http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html

In my English class last year, I began each day with the poem of the day. For the first half of the semester, I had the students pick numbers at random, and I read that poem from the Poetry 180 book. For the second half of the semester, a different student was assigned to choose and read the poem of the day. They had access to a selection of books that I brought into the classroom. Many of them grabbed the Poetry 180 book as the bell was ringing, but some of them took the time to select a poem more carefully, and one student read his own poem to the class.

I wanted them to just hear poetry without studying or analyzing it, and I wanted another way for them to practice their public speaking skills. For you classroom managers out there, it was also a focusing activity, since I started reading as soon as the bell rang.

I can't tell you that they did better on their tests - I actually didn't measure the effect in any way. I enjoyed it, and most of my students liked it, according to their surveys. They were high school seniors in a class studying literature and speech. Poetry 180 is meant for high school, and the content is age appropriate, but you could take the same approach with other anthologies.

Amy


Amy Healey, M.S.L.S. Teacher/Librarian New Holstein High School 1715 Plymouth Street New Holstein, WI 53061 ahealey at nhsd.k12.wi.us 920.898.3091
Received on Wed 09 Apr 2008 02:10:40 PM CDT