Suggests adding poetry instruction to the Children's Defense Fund, a fund created to ensure that poor children get the basic necessities of life--food, healthcare, and education. Talks about the influence that Langston Hughes, a poet who lived in Harlem, had on the first author. Encourages students to avoid living other people's answers and to…

Describes a project that connected a ninth-grade English classroom in Colorado with English classes grades 7-12 in remote, rural Alaska and a poet in Vermont in an online poetry exchange. Describes how it has changed the entire atmosphere of the rural Alaskan school, and turned into a life-altering event for students, staff members, parents, and…