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7 Tips for Creating Your Own High School Poetry Study
April is National Poetry Month. What better time to head to the library with your teen in search of poetry to inspire their own inner poet or even your own? You may also find local events that are happening to celebrate poetry in your own community. Listed below are 7 tips for studying poetry with your teen!
1. Expose students to a variety of poetry and poets.
This should include classical poetry and poetry from a wide range of ethnic groups, race, gender, age, and backgrounds. Learning about poetry from different groups can help students learn a different point of view and may help them identify similarities they have to different groups of people. There are tons of poetry lists on the internet but make sure to take a look through Homeschoolliterature.com’s list-Classic Poetry to Inspire Teens
2. Help students learn to enjoy poetry.
This can be done a variety of ways, especially for homeschoolers. Use background music, use smells as stimuli, use pictures and videos as inspiration. Weather permitting use the great outdoors, whether that is the busy city or the peaceful country to help students get in the mood to write their own great poetry.
3. Write your own poems as examples for students.
This will show them the process of drafts, failures, and successes to help them get started.
4. Explain how poetry can be used as a way to express themselves.
Poetry can be a wonderful way for students to express the parts of the human experience that can otherwise be difficult to describe. A ton of words isn’t needed to put feelings on paper.
5. Show students how to identify specific types of poetry and characteristics of poems they enjoy.
You can do this by teaching them the vocabulary of poetry: Lyric poem, ballad, epic, haiku, elegy, free verse, sonnet, couplet, ode, alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, symbol, theme, tone, stanza, rhyme, and repetition.
6. Consider pairing poems with similar themes but written by different poets Here are a few examples worth considering-
- “Sunflower Sutra” by Allen Gensberg vs. “Ah! Sun-flower” by William Blake
- “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar vs “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson
- “The Moon was but a Chin of Gold” by Emily Dickinson vs. “The Moon” by Robert Louis Stevenson
- “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks vs. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost
7. For fun pair up some poems with songs!
- “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Annabel Lee” by Tiger Army
- “The Lighthouse” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and “The Lighthouse’s Tale” by Nickel Creek
- “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson and “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles
- “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Alicia Keys
About jcapps
Joy Capps is a homeschool bookworm residing in the mountains of western North Carolina. The only one who loves books more is her 16-year-old daughter. They both enjoy perusing old bookstores for treasures and sniffing books. Her son who is 18 has special needs, is the social butterfly of the family and has never met a stranger. Although she is originally from South Dakota she now calls North Carolina her home and she and her family love exploring the great outdoors. Her family has been homeschooling since 2005.
April 20, 2019
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