419: Hate Teaching Poetry? Here's Help (Part I)

About this episode

Betsy Potash shares twelve creative options for teaching poetry to engage students throughout the year.

Maybe you weren't taught poetry with joy and pizzazz, and you don't incline to writing it yourself. Which perhaps describes, what do you think, 99% of the population? Maybe 99.99%? If you're in this camp, I get it. Poetry can feel like a nebulous enigma in the world of literature, and it's easy to find yourself nodding along when people talk about it being great without really believing in your nod, like the parade-goers in The Emperor's New Clothes . I didn't have much use for it until I met my first performance poetry multimedia - audio recordings, a slam documentary, and the Def Poetry jam series - about twenty years ago. Then everything changed. Suddenly instead of a hoop to be jumped through, poetry opened up as a gateway I could use to help students connect to ELA. Since then, I've discovered layer upon layer of wonderful ways to build poetry in across units, learning a great deal from others along the way. Today on the pod, I'll walk you through twelve different creative, engaging options you can tap into as you teach poetry throughout the year. And I do hope that after this, you WILL teach poetry throughout the year. Links Mentioned: Chrome Music Labs Song Maker Tool…

People in this episode

Host: Betsy Potash

Topics covered

• teaching poetry
• creative writing
• engagement strategies
• ELA
• performance poetry
• poetry activities

Keywords

• poetry
• teaching strategies
• creative activities
• ELA
• performance poetry
• student engagement
• poetry analysis

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Chrome Music Labs Song Maker Tool, Blackout Poetry Activity Full Handouts Free Resource

Books & works: The Emperor's New Clothes, Def Poetry, Poetry Blackout for Analysis Activity

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