Poets in the Classroom

Sheree Haughian is an elementary-school teacher-librarian in
Orangeville, Ontario.

It must be hard to teach poetry badly. Unfortunately, many teachers seem
to have been students in those classrooms where poetry was a nasty
experience, confined to memorizing tedious recipes for sonnets and
descriptions of iambic pentameter. Sensitive to the learning needs of
their students, these teachers are reluctant to re-create mass boredom.
They are refugees from the poetic encounter. It’s a pity, for poetry
can offer the richest possible experience of language.

Perhaps the answer to the poetry predicament lies in consulting the
experts, the people who practise the real thing in the real world. Poets
in the Classroom is a collection of ideas and strategies contributed by
more than 20 members of the League of Canadian Poets, published
professionals who have spent time conducting poetry workshops in
classrooms. The editors have grouped contributions from these poets into
classroom activities for young students, discussions of various poetic
forms, inspirational ideas, and strategies featuring new ways of using
familiar methods. This collection is not limited to a particular student
age group or level of teacher expertise. It is both a source of support
for the poetically naive and insecure, and a fountain of innovation for
teachers who have never shunned the many possibilities of poetry in
language-arts programs. The appendixes also contain helpful suggestions
about inviting Canadian poets into the classroom.