In this article, I show how the study of the poems of Charles Reznikoff -- a 20th century American lawyer -- helps teach the critical art of paraphrase to International law students, lawyers from The Temple's LLM Program. Scholars have acknowledged the difficulty of teaching paraphrase to students from civil law countries, acknowledging that it…

The author was invited as a teaching artist into a first-grade classroom in New York City to teach a 14-session poetry residency culminating in an anthology of student writing. They began by sitting together on a carpet by the interactive whiteboard and read aloud several examples of "I wish" poems from Kenneth Koch's (1970) wonderful…

With the advent of online synopses, e-guides, and Internet study aids, millennial college students have many ways to evade direct interactions with the texts assigned in humanities classes. As a result, fewer and fewer of them are developing the analytical and close reading skills that college instructors value so highly. In this essay, the author…

It is not clear that the literary genre called poetry has a future in the face of a reduction in literary study that Common Core's English language arts standards implicitly mandate-- and in the context of Common Core's drive for workforce development. Common Core claims the standards will prepare students equally for "college and…

Poetry recitation removes the distractions of creating and organizing original material so that business students can focus on presentation skills of delivery, confidence, and memory. Delivery includes articulation, emphasis, nonverbals, and presence. Confidence and memory development are complementary. Confidence comes from trusting the memory…

One day, over four centuries ago, Daniele Barbaro, a Venetian nobleman, tried an interesting experiment (Upton & Upton, 1980). He decided to use a convex lens from a farsighted man's spectacles to expand the viewing power of his camera obscura. To his delight, "the lens projected images much superior to those previously supplied by the…

As an educator, the author learned that her job was not simply to teach the fundamental concepts of literature and writing, but also to teach students the fundamentals of conversation and collaboration. In this article, the author shares her experience in using traditional, teacher-centered methods to inspire spirited conversations among students…

The more the author delved into forming her poetry unit, the more poetry opened up to her. She began to appreciate it for its creative ability to help readers and writers understand texts, experiences, and ideas. It was the length of time involved that concerned her most. She was mainly trying to work out the pace needed to cover as much as…

Describes a unit that provides opportunities for students to examine the relationship between poetry and pictures as they select published poems, write their own poetry, and take photographs to accompany the poems in an anthology. Describes lesson one on intellectual property and copyright, and lesson two on appreciation. Includes a unit guide and…