Because we believe high school teachers are already teaching poetry in dynamic ways, we want to see what you do in the classroom and help you to share it with others.
If you are a teacher and you currently use poems in your classroom, please submit your favorite poetry lesson plans. With the help of veteran high school teachers, we will review these lessons and post the best of them on our website, so other teachers and students can benefit from your great ideas.
We are also looking for lessons to correspond with the Poetry Center Reading Series. This year’s featured readers include Rae Armantrout, Lucille Clifton, Taha Muhammad Ali, Peter Cole, W.S. Merwin, and Francisco X. Alarcon. If you already know and love the work of these poets, please try your hand at crafting a lesson that incorporates one of their poems. If you don't already know and own the poet's work, but you would like the challenge of figuring out whether or not it would work in your classroom, let us know and we will work with you to get one of their books for review.
If your poems are selected for the website, you will receive publication credit and a signed volume of poetry from one of the poets in our reading series.
All lessons should be classroom tested, that is, taught in the classroom at least once. While not required, we are particularly interested in lessons that contain accompanying student work, which we may publish alongside the lesson. Students whose work we publish will also receive a signed copy of the poet’s book.
Each lesson should focus on a single poet and their work. Lessons can be directed toward a student’s own creative writing in tandem with the study of a particular poet. Or teachers can ask students to engage with the poems using literary analysis.
