http://toadlilypress.com/2010/03/on-the-periphery%e2%80%94thoughts-on-teaching-and-poetry-and-teaching-poetry/ a unique literary press Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:15:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://toadlilypress.com/2010/03/on-the-periphery%e2%80%94thoughts-on-teaching-and-poetry-and-teaching-poetry/comment-page-1/#comment-97 Pamela Hart Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:04:40 +0000 http://toadlilypress.com/?p=950#comment-97 Hi Matthew, First, congrats and good luck! Eighth graders are -- wow -- such complex, wonderful, frustrating, endearing, annoying creatures. Will you be teaching primarily a writing class or a reading -- or most likely a combination? The Poetry 180 anthology is great for teens, though some of the work is more appropriate for high schoolers. For me as both teacher and writer, poetry is about trying to making sense of the world, and I think kids yearn, for ways to learn how to do that. Get them out of themselves to be in themselves, if that makes sense. Be outside and inside. Read. Read the world. Let them learn to read their world. That the stuff of their world is material for poems. Ask them the question you're trying to answer -- what is a poem anyway? What is poetry? What a great time you'll have with these embodied awkward beings. Keep us posted! Hi Matthew,
First, congrats and good luck! Eighth graders are — wow — such complex, wonderful, frustrating, endearing, annoying creatures. Will you be teaching primarily a writing class or a reading — or most likely a combination? The Poetry 180 anthology is great for teens, though some of the work is more appropriate for high schoolers. For me as both teacher and writer, poetry is about trying to making sense of the world, and I think kids yearn, for ways to learn how to do that. Get them out of themselves to be in themselves, if that makes sense. Be outside and inside. Read. Read the world. Let them learn to read their world. That the stuff of their world is material for poems. Ask them the question you’re trying to answer — what is a poem anyway? What is poetry? What a great time you’ll have with these embodied awkward beings. Keep us posted!

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