Let's Poem

This cutting-edge guide presents multiple approaches to teaching poetry at the middle and high school levels. The author provides field-tested activities with detailed how-to instructions, as well as advice for how educators can “justify” their teaching within a high-stakes curriculum environment. Let’s Poem will show pre- and inservice teachers how to preserve the fun of poetry while also developing critical writing and analysis skills, how to introduce students to the basic formal elements of classic and contemporary poetry, and how to expand their repertoires through the use of digital technology and the Internet. With an urban and multicultural focus, chapters cover choral reading of poetry, writing about race, jazz poetry and other cultural forms, hip-hop and spoken word poetry, multimodal “remixing” of canonical poems, the use of poems from international settings and authors, and more.

Book features:

• Field-tested activities accompanied by step-by-step instructions, student writing samples, and teacher comments.
• Ways to extend and adapt lessons for diverse groups.
• Annotated online resources, including a book website with links to all sites in the book and to a social networking group.

Mark Dressman is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently also an editor of Research in the Teaching of English. Join the author online at letspoemresources.ning.com

“This book isn’t one for the shelves; it’s for your head and your heart and, ultimately, for your students.”
—Kylene Beers, Reading and Writing Project, Teachers College, Columbia University and NCTE past President, 2009-2010

"Preserves the fun of poetry while adding assistance to more rigorous understandings about how poetry is made and the work that it can do . Let’s Poem is a great new resource for middle and high school teachers."
—Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Boise State University, author of "You Gotta BE the Book" Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents, Second Edition