high school poetry

@Holly, I’d like to hear what you think and how you implement the MP Poetry guides; plus, which ones you are using and plan to use in the future  (to the best of your ability)

@jeanin: my dd, 8th grade officially (age 15) is using Roar on the Other Side and The Great Courses: How to Read and Understand Poetry. I made up a syllabus for RotOS if you want me to email it to you.

For the future I’m looking at:

Memoria Press guides; Progeny Press Introduction to Poetry; Art of Poetry; Invitation to Poetry; Center for Lit’s Online Poetry Class.

Rachel, we are just using the Grammar Stage book as a family.  I picked poems that go with our lessons, 2 per term.  We are reading Farmer Boy, The Hobbit, and Heidi, all of which have related poems in the book.  We’re also using one that goes with their astronomy book, as we read it.  We are reciting/reading together the poem two days a week.  with each lesson, I pick and choose a couple elements of the lesson:  a vocab word or two, poetic terms like alliteration, poetry meters, and a bit of discussion or narration.

I’m trying to make the emphasis on memorization, so I only bring up one or two topics with each reading.  I don’t want to overanalyze the poems, but I do want to introduce poetic terms and structure.  I’ve found the MP teacher guides work well if I pick and choose from the teacher guide, and view it as a menu of ideas and not a checklist we must complete.

My future plans are to start Poetry I for 10th grade and have them do one book per year.  At this point, they will probably complete the student guide on their own.  The Grammar Stage and American Short Stories (and poems) books will be part of our family studies.

Michael Clay Thompson teaches poetry.  I have not used it, but it gets good reviews.