Explains how students can be introduced to the delights and problems of lyric poetry by reading A.E. Housman's "Lovliest of Trees, the Cherry Now." (HOD)

Provides a series of suggestions to help students in poetry writing classes move past those periods when ideas for poems seem to have stopped flowing. (TJ)

Provides a guide for teaching Edwin Morgan's poem, "O Pioneers!" (TJ)

Suggests the use of parody to deepen students' understanding of how and why poems work. (TJ)

Relates a two-part writing assignment for the study of poetry, in which students are assigned to write a critique in response to a particular question and are then asked to give a personal response. (TJ)

Describes an exercise designed to make students aware that the meaning of words is context-dependent and that everyday usages differ in meaning from poetic uses. (RB)

Recommends teaching Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" by using a grammatical approach to the reading. (TJ)

Describes a test to determine students' understanding of poetry that avoids the difficulties of objective tests and involves the students with poetry on the test. (TJ)

Because Robert Lowell's poem "Hawthorne" focuses on Puritan New England, both as a setting and a subject, and shows the dark side of human nature, and Hawthorne as the alienated artist with a definite place in American literature, it is a most appropriate conclusion for a teaching unit on Hawthorne.

Emphasizes classroom study of poetic patterns and images to enable students to see how poems work without overwhelming them with terminology. (MS)

Describes an assignment in which students are taught to develop poetry using the ideas and words found in newspaper or magazine stories. Includes model poems. (HTH)

Encourages students to attempt to capture the voice of established poets in parodies. Notes that this close interaction with literature allows the students to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of literary styles. Presents two student parodies of William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." (RS)

Describes how creating a poem that focuses on memory, understanding, and emotion can lead to the construction of a meditative poem. States that poetry of meditation can be modified for use in almost any writing or literature classroom environment. (PA)

Presents an approach to discussion of Shakespearean sonnets, in which a group of students makes a presentation to the class and two empty chairs. Notes that, after the presentation, members of the larger group can take one of the empty seats and offer evidence or questions to the "experts," producing a lively and focused group…