Download Implementing Poetry--with a Focus on Contemporary Free Verse

Implementing Poetry – with a Focus on Contemporary Free
Verse – into the Classroom
Jaime O’Connor
Handing out a course syllabus to a classroom full of antsy
ninth graders on the first day of school is difficult. They are much
too busy to be back at school. Nine out of ten students are more
interested one, what the other did this summer, two, why Jennifer
is dating Fred, and three, “When is your lunch period?” Then there
is this business of looking over, or in my case at or up at, the sea of
freshly made up or prematurely shaven faces of ninth graders and
really getting to know them. But every year I notice the same thing:
none of them are identical; not even the freckly and bushy redheaded McCarty twins I had last year. Well, so what? Who cares?
If, as a teacher I get to know my students, great. If not, have I
really taught them? And if I have, am I considered a successful
educator because I was able to get to know them as well as teach
Romeo and Juliet?
Nope.
Recognizing the individuality of students is one of the most
challenging aspects of the job. Laden with IEPs and 504s,
modifications for this one but not for that one, it can be an
extremely arduous task trying to figure out how I’m going to be
able to make a range of units like a poetry unit and creative writing
work for each student. But here’s the silver lining: it’s possible. It
just takes a little bit of time. One of the best ways to accomplish
this task – to ultimately get to know my kids, who they are as
readers, writers, and critical thinkers – is to ask them.
Short of assigning them to formally write a paper about
their true selves, as an English teacher I have the privilege of
asking them to express their thoughts on the timeless question
through the use of a more creative conduit: contemporary free
verse poetry.
“POETRY? I hate poetry! Mr. C. made us do it last year
every day!” Lindsay’s complaint about the study of poetry is
discouragingly similar to those of her peers, fluctuating only in the
last name of the teacher. How do I tell Lindsay that reading and
writing poetry is not as painful as Mr. C. allegedly made it? The
truth is that I know some of my colleagues at the middle school are
published poets, but to teach poetry to twelve, thirteen and fourteen
year-olds is entirely different. Word on the street has it that the
kids are bombarded with stanza this, and rhyme scheme that. Ick!
Where Did We Go Wrong?
I’m a young teacher. I’m relatively new to my district, and
I threw out all of the dittos that were left in my pea-green filing
cabinets with no locks. But here’s the catch: I am so new that I
haven’t had time to get comfortable in the same lessons and
pedagogy that some teachers have been using year after year for
the last twenty years. Instead, what I’ve learned in my three years
experience is that the general opinion about poetry – the good, the
bad and the ugly – is based on some bad and very “veteran” habits.
Too many times teachers think that poetry is metered, rhymed, old,
dead and white. In other words, “Ladies and gentlemen, take out
your ‘Poetry Reader’ and open to page 186 where you should read
‘The Road Not Taken’ and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime
of the Ancient Mariner.’ When you’re done, write your answers to
the study guide questions and leave them on my desk before you
leave.” We can’t get bogged down in the former mire of poetry by
perpetuating our oldest fears about the art. Instead, we need to ask
our students to look at, read, listen to and subsequently, write, as
crafters of poetry; not just readers.
How Do We Fix It?
Well, first and foremost, as a teacher, I always want to
know to what ends justify the means. In other words, what are my
long-term objectives? Realistically, a great way to start remedying
the problem of escaping the age-old idea that poetry is all literary
devices is to approach it by way of a genre study. Using such a
method of instruction means that I need to find many examples of
the kinds of pieces that I want my students to first read and then
eventually write themselves. It is a sort of model approach. In a
genre study, the kids will learn about how to read and write poetry
by analyzing examples that I have chosen. Reading examples and
explaining the “methods behind the madness” will only further aid
the kids in writing their own work and pieces. After that exposure,
they will find their own examples. They will look at how the poet
uses his craft and how he goes about the process of writing in
order to express himself through poetry rather than just the types of
onomatopoeia and imagery that he uses. Ultimately, the students
will write poetry within the genre. I want my kids to build an
appreciation for poetry. I want them to be writers of craft and
process rather than just technique and form. So, if I submerse them
in examples of what I want them to ultimately attempt to create on
their own, why not start with a genre without oppressive rules?
Why not study contemporary free verse?
He Said She Said: What it is and Isn’t
Goodbye rhyme, iambic pentameter and hours of analysis
of theme and “deeper meaning.” Hello contemporary free verse.
Sounds painful, doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s a beautiful thing, actually.
So, what exactly is free verse? The formal definition is offered by
Editor J.A. Cuddon from The Penguin Dictionary of Literary
Terms and Literary Theory as a genre of poetry that has:
no regular meter or line length and depends on
natural speech rhythms and the counterpoint of
stressed and unstressed syllables. Through the
origins of this form are obscure, there are signs of it
in medieval alliterative verse and in the Authorized
Bible translations of the Psalms and The Song of
Songs. Many poets throughout history have
experimented with this form, including Milton,
Goethe, Betrand, Hugo, Baudelaire, Smart, Blake
and Arnold. Walt Whitman is the poet commonly
referenced for final development and
implementation of the form. Free verse would be
widely embraced and employed by many poets,
including Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence
and William Carlos Williams. (331)
Free verse poetry is much more straightforward since it many
times it addresses objects or very clear images. As imagery is very
a popular literary device in more traditional poetry, symbolism and
metaphor are not as highly recognizable in poems of the
contemporary free verse. William Carlos Williams was a poet who
blazed the trails of the genre.
William Carlos Williams (1883 - 1963) called his
poems ‘poetry of immediacy.’ The immediate
subject – a piece of paper in the street, or a red
wheel barrow, for instance – was the heart of many
of his short poems. He did not use words or phrases
that stand for other objects or ideas.
‘All I try to do is understand something in its
natural colors and shapes,’ he once explained. He
felt that the most important thing is the way things
look.
Many of his poems describe nature. Williams wrote
about plants, animals, the landscape, the weather.
(Weiss 6)
The rules that Williams followed were the ones that he created for
himself. He followed no set meter, form, or rhyme scheme. With
his beliefs about immediacy, his poetry shows that there isn’t time
to stop and think about how his line length might affect the
outcome of the poem. He didn’t want to have to stop and ponder
what symbols might have been substituted when a perfectly good
bunch of lavender and yellow flowers were staring him right in the
face. And his beliefs worked for him. His poems are, in essence,
simple and beautiful and “seeable,” as evidenced in his poem
Nantucket:
Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow
changed by white curtains –
Smell of cleanliness –
Sunshine of late afternoon –
On the glass tray
a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which
a key is lying – And the
immaculate white bed (Weiss 6)
Williams’ use of words evokes a reaction from readers; it’s the
“Oh yeah! I have been to that beach house and I hate the way the
sand collects in the grout of the hardwood floors” type of reaction
that makes contemporary free verse poetry so successful.
Think about it this way. The beauty of poetry, and more
specifically free verse poetry, is that it is free, in the emancipated
sense of the word, from the normal constructs of what students
understand poetry to be: rhymed lines, with a specific format,
laden with necessary metaphor, imagery, and figures of speech
infused with deep meaning. At fourteen, that’s nothing more than a
recipe for an in-class nap. Free verse poetry is patterned by the
way speak, the way we interpret events, and by the way we view
life.
Poetry Portal, a website dedicated to enlightening the general
public on such a topic, explains that things like meter and long
lines are a construct of the past. Instead, free verse poetry might
allow visual and sound effects through language, with no formal
line length. Heck, repetition and short lines are a great element to
contemporary free verse just like Williams’ lines about how the
objects in the room are found all around (Poetry 1).
However, there are some concepts of regulation to keep in
mind. Free verse poetry does not recklessly abandon what we
know to be true of poetry and its rules. Rather, this genre of poetry
makes up its own rules, implementing the successful elements of
traditional and formulaic poetry, like haikus or limericks. But it is
at the writer’s discretion of when, how, and where to use such
elements. Writing a free verse poem is as different for each student
as he makes it to be. It is beautifully and simplistically individual,
just like the sea of faces sitting before me on the first day of
school. Writing a poem becomes drastically less painful for
students when they feel they have ownership and say in what they
write. Two of my rowdier sophomores, Kasey and C.J., always tell
me how much more enjoyable it is to be able to write what they
want, with only guiding parameters for an assignment.
Moving Beyond the Veteran
Tonya Perry, an instructor at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham and editor of English Journal’s column “Taking
Time” explains that many times teachers go about teaching poetry
in the most dreadful ways. Flashback to 1994: Mr. D. handed out
copies of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” my freshman year in
high school and told us to read it and interpret it after we had
underlined all of the metaphors and images. I wonder what the sea
of rolling eyes looked like from his podium. What was worse was
how he made us “mimic” Frost’s “use of language” when we were
assigned our own “wall” poem. Gag!
Apparently things haven’t changed all that much in fifteen
years or so. Though gifted with the ability to express himself
through beautiful poetry, I have to agree, going back to Lindsay,
that Mr. C. is a bit mundane in his credo when it comes to poetry.
He writes it – with brilliance and magnificence – but teaches it
with a sense of weariness. However, I know he gets frustrated,
always asking the kids about “why they don’t get it,” when he tries
to explain iambic pentameter and its relevance to their cellular
phone and MySpace motivated worlds. Mr. C. hands out copies of
“great” poems, dissects their deeper and “hidden” meaning,
imagery, and use of literary devices to death, and then sends them
down the Path of Doom by telling them to go “Write a poem!”
Are you kidding me?
Nope.
Yikes.
Talk about formulaic. It is pedagogy like this that avers
students to the true depth and potential for creativity that poetry
entails, and this is exactly what Perry cautions us against as
educators. The editor continues to explain, and I would acquiesce,
that students who are instructed through this method become
unenthusiastic and disheartened when they are introduced to the
greats: Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Whitman, Frost and
the like. Why? Because that’s a pretty high standard to live up to
(110). She concludes by explaining that “We want students to
know quality work, to breathe lyrical words, to embrace the power
of poetic language” (110). And she is correct. So where did Mr. D.
and Mr. C. go wrong? Well, to ask students to write poetry means
that they need to read it as writers of it. There is a different
purpose in reading when you know you’ll be attempting the craft
of poetry at some point.
Getting the Engine Running
Georgia Heard is a genius. Well, if our definitions of genius
differ, let us settle on the fact that the woman knows poetry and
how to teach it. One book any and every English teacher should
have on his shelf contains the ideas and anecdotes of Heard about
poetry and how to impart it to students. Awakening the Heart:
Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School, is a book that
is designed to guide us through a three-layered genre approach to
teaching the gift of free verse poetry to our students.
The first layer Heard suggests is to surround the kids in
examples, keeping with the genre study approach, of poems that
are immediate and “accessible, nonthreatening, and relevant to
students’ lives” (21). The readers and writers of poetry need to
know that poetry surrounds us in our everyday lives, and Heard
explains that poetry projects for students, like the Living
Anthology Project, are good ways to start. On its most basic level,
students should find poems about everyday objects – a drinking
fountain, a window, a container for pencils – and then post the
poems in those locations so that they “compel people to stop and
take a little time out of their busy day to enjoy a poem” as when
walking by the same old silvery water fountain day after day (25).
The second layer that Heard suggests, and one that is also
an element of learning the craft of free verse, is to help the students
find, what I would call, Inside/Outside poems. In other words, as
Heard might explain, help the kids find pieces in which they will
find themselves and their outside lives inside the words. Offer
them the opportunity to read other teenager-composed poems by
use of a webquest in class, where you research particular sites, and
then have them respond, either through discussion or journaling in
their Writer’s Notebooks.
Finally, layer three. Channeling students toward “analyzing
the craft of a poem, figuring out how a poem is built” is the last
step in a solid genre styled approach to introducing free verse
poetry into the classroom (43). Somewhat traditionally, Heard
encourages us to help students unlock difficult poems that are
challenging at first read. However, through practices like centering
the poem on a blank sheet of paper with plenty of space to make
notes and annotations, the more ideas that are written, more
discussion about meaning will come about. She also mentions
something called craft groups. These are great ideas to implement
once you’ve worked through the first two layers. When you’ve
come to the third layer, you can break the students up into small
groups to examine some of the more technical aspects of the poem
like metaphor and simile, but you attach more emotive and
reactionary questions, like, “How do [line break and stanza]
enhance or contribute to the meaning of the poem?” (45). You
might suggest that your students look at areas of the poem such as
creativity/originality of ideas. Did the poet choose a topic from
everyday life or make something up based on fantasy? From there,
have them discuss the pictures that the poet creates and how
effectively she does so based on her personal style and use of
detail. How clear are her ideas? Does she stop and make you
ponder what she’s discussing or does she take a more Williamsstyled approach and put all the images out on the table, so to
speak? Guiding students through these three layers builds the
foundation to a strong genre styled approach.
Taking Baby Steps
Many times the arrival of a poetry unit will elicit the same
reaction as that of Lindsay about Mr. C. and his pedagogy. As a
secondary English teacher in British Columbia, Nicole Baart sums
up every English teacher’s apprehension about planning and
implementing a poetry unit when she writes that “At fourteen you
are still the invincible center of your own universe, and stultifying
poetry by ‘old dead guys’ is about as exciting as watching grass
grow” (98). Isn’t that the truth? Studying “The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner” and long-winded Whitman or ghastly Plath
hardly offer competition to watching that grass grow. Most kids
would choose observing the grass.
But not all is lost.
Beginning the writing process means working through
ideas. But where are we supposed to get those ideas? First we need
our kids to hear poetry. The application for employment that I
filled out for Marcellus Central School District did not,
unfortunately, ask me if I had the ability to inspire students to love
poetry. If it had, I would have stopped at that very question and run
right out of the District Office. Instead, the undertaking of
inspiring students to love poetry, to love anything that we as
“dorky teachers” are passionate about, is something learned.
However, introducing poetry does not, nor should it start with a
formal “Literary Devices Found In Poetry” lesson. Georgia Heard,
in For the Good of the Earth and Sun: Teaching Poetry explains to
her readers that “Every writer of poetry is first a reader of poetry”
(1). Understand however that reading poetry does not mean
reading it, and then dissecting it. Read it to read it; to enjoy it, to
appreciate it.
So where does one begin?
One of the best ways to just read poetry is to employ the
“Poem-a-Day” rule, as discussed in Appendix A, which offers
suggestions about reading a poem a day at the beginning of each
class. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find a poem that fits right
into the content you’re trying to teach. Other days, have them read
or listen to a poem just to read or hear it. An extremely helpful set
of books is from former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy
Collins. Collins released Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry in
2003, and 180 More, released in 2005, two anthologies of poetry to
utilize in the classroom for every day of school. While his intention
was to integrate a program throughout the United States in the high
school setting over the PA system sometime during the day, it
might not be possible to employ this practice on a school wide
level, no matter how important it is. However, English teachers
have the right – and responsibility – to expose students to poetry,
in any genre or form. Perhaps you make it part of the daily routine,
and students keep reflections and reactions – purely emotive and
“personal” – in their Writer’s Notebooks; either way, to write
poetry, one must read it and hear it.
Once the students have had a fluent exposure to hearing
poetry and to reading poetry, have the kids dabble with their
thoughts and feelings, memories and experiences during a free
writing period. Heard enlightens us in her book, For the Good of
the Earth and Sun, that “poems start with a feeling, and an image
is one powerful way to convey feeling” (32). Writing freely, in a
journal, Writer’s Notebook, etc. is a non-invasive way of having
the students put thoughts onto paper. She also offers these tips to
help inspire the beginning of the poetry process:

Avoid censoring them, especially in the
beginning – Stifling their creativity and
ideas, even if they are about flying through
the air spreading good cheer on a magical
horse, will turn them off to the subject and
process. No initial idea is ever perfect, and
students need to be comfortable in this fact.

Let students choose what they want to write
about – They wouldn’t write about it if they
didn’t care about the topic. C.J. needs to try
and try again in order to truly discover and
understand what it is that he’s writing about.

Create an open and trusting environment –
We stand in front of them every day
unintimidated. For them to open themselves
up can be frightening. Encouraging courage
will enable them to flourish.

Spend adequate time – Heard tells us that it
takes a lifetime to become a poet. Spending
a day or two on poetry will by no means do
justice to the possibility of what they might
be able to write.

Don’t be the expert – Teach each other. Let
them know that you’re in this together, and
write poems just as they do. Share your
writing with them. (35)
Another idea in gathering ideas for poetry comes from
imagery, which infallibly, students will and should utilize in their
writing. The writers and collaborators of Writer’s Inc., A Student
Handbook for Writing and Learning define imagery as “the words
or phrases a writer selects to create a certain picture in the reader’s
mind. Imagery is usually based on sensory details” (421). Senses.
If we are lucky enough to be without an impairment of some sort,
we functionally use them every day. But how do we explain them?
In essence, how do we express what we see, hear, taste, touch, and
smell and put those thoughts and opinions in to words?
My husband and I walked through the grocery story the
other night and sauntered past the aisle that contains the tubes of
Ben-Gay, one of which had been punctured open. Immediately, he
scrunched his skinny nose and cried, “Eew! I feel like I’m back in
the back of the track bus!” reminiscent of his track days in high
school. This reaction is the very objective of a writing workshop
called The Scent Workshop: to “evoke memory through scent”
(Baart 99).
Nicole Baart uses an innovative set of workshops to help
students initiate the writing process of poetry. Baart offers
suggestions in her article “Saying It More Intensely: Using
Sensory Experience to Teach Poetry Writing,” based around scent,
taste, hearing and sight. But we can’t forget the sense of touch,
either. There are three simple rules that must be followed; 1. Clear
desks, 2. No talking, and 3. Write, write, write! No erasing (99).
Appendix B models a sample lesson created implementing the
suggestions and ideas Baart offers.
The Canadian teacher then selects sixteen scents and places
them in anonymous containers labeling them numerically, and
students pass the containers around, experiencing each scent. “I try
to direct their encounter by encouraging them to close their eyes
and breathe in a particular scent” (100). The hope is that each
student will record a memory based on at least one scent. The
student is to record his thoughts and feelings, memories and
reactions based on the number of the scent. Baart ultimately
assigns students to “write a ‘memory poem’ based on something
that they experienced during the workshop” (100). She similarly
explicates the other workshops that evoke interesting, new, and
refreshing outlooks on objects that are viewed as “normal and
everyday” through free verse poetry.
Once the students have a surfeit of ideas, it’s time to
channel them into free verse poetry.
Tools of the Trade
As carpenters need their tools organized, writers need their
ideas and practices organized as well. Heard explains in
Awakening the Heart that the students should create their own
toolbox for poetic composition. The toolbox can be divided into
two sections, just as a carpenter’s toolbox has different
compartments. The first section entails tools used to help writers
create meaning, where words about feeling and “experience
through visual and sensory” modes are contained (65). They also
contain words to help encourage revision. The second section of
the toolbox includes words and prompts that help the writer
express his feelings though “auditory, musical and rhythmic”
experiences (65). Why not create a poster to hang on the walls in
the room to remind them of reference points? Posting these
prompts will help when they begin the process of putting pencil to
paper.
Writing free verse poetry does not mean, as stated earlier,
that all guidelines are thrown to the wind. You can ask them to
write that memory poem Baart suggests. But when you meet to
conference over it, you notice that Kasey’s poem lacks luster. This
is why I love Heard’s tools for enhancing language in Chapter
Four from Awakening the Heart. If you have the students fold their
papers in half “the hot dog way,” they should write the words
“ordinary” and “poetic” on top of the two created columns. Look
out the window. Have them secure an image in their sight and, on
the left side, under the “ordinary” column, they should write as
many adjectives about the word as possible. When they are done,
under the “poetic” column, tell them to push their brains a step
further. What color green does the grass represent? Is it the color
of mold on cheese? Is it the color of a watermelon rind? When the
students go back and “re-vision” their words, they are able to see
that it’s possible to transform ordinary objects into pieces of poetry
through their descriptors. You can even extend the idea and, under
the “poetic” column, have them construct similes and metaphors
via their adjectives.
Once students have composed their pieces with attention to
language, they need to pay attention to the natural rhythm of the
piece. And what about rhythm? Look back at the toolbox. One
element that does constitute free verse poetry is the beat the poem
creates internally. There is a rhythm to Williams’ Nantucket, as
with all other free verse poems, which is a facet of the genre that
students must understand and embrace to write successful poems.
However, they must also keep in mind, and it is our job to remind
them, that rhythm is something that we all feel, internally. No one
tells us how to feel rhythm when we hear our favorite song on our
i-pod®; we naturally move to the beat without thinking, and so they
must remember that the rhythm of their free verse poetry is quite
similar. It is individual to each of them, and there is no right or
wrong. Heard suggests in Awakening the Heart that we help our
students to draw sounds. Relate the words to music and their
physical sounds as they exit our mouths. Instruct the students to
draw their words. Use the word “clock.” Instead of drawing a
circle with hands and numbers, Heard explains that we should
listen to the sound of the word “hour,” realizing that there are “no
sharp or hard sounds, so [the] illustration might be a curved line”
(90). Visually seeing a word will help construct both rhythm and
shape.
Rhythm also has shape. Heard conducted a poetry
workshop in Brooklyn and writes in For the Good of the Earth and
the Sun about a student named Molly, who wrote her poem in a
block-like form on a sheet of paper. Heard explained to the second
grader that “‘Poems are like buildings; some are long and skinny,
sometimes with only one word on a line’” (56). Students need to
realize that poetry does have shape due to its rhythm. “‘in poetry,
blank space means silence’” (56). We should take the same queue.
Encourage the students to read their poems out loud and to place a
slash mark where their voices pause naturally. Heard continued to
encourage Molly to finish writing in her slash marks and then
“‘write it out on another piece of paper and see if you like the way
it looks. If a line is too long, or if you don’t like the way it breaks,
try it a different way. Experiment with it’” (57). When students are
able to realize that the line breaks are not every fourth line and that
they are not required to make ideas and words fit neatly into six
stanzas, they are fully immersed in the open and trusting
environment. “Line breaks are a personal decision for the poet.
There is no right or wrong. There is only what’s best for the poem
as a whole” (60). To have the ownership and authority in choosing
the flow and rhythm of the poem is as important as the meaning
behind the ideas being composed.
Similar to line breaks is the magnitude of white space. For
analogous reasons, white space creates pauses and moments for
thought and reflection. The poet wants you to stop and ponder the
ideas being presented. “Poets may use white space to make a break
in the information or thought of a stanza; to slow the poem down . .
.” (63). It’s another personal choice for the poet to make. “It’s a
serious decision for a poet whether to group lines one at a time, or
in twos or in threes; it’s essential to decide where the blank space
should go. It’s an issue of sound and silence” (61). Kasey and C.J.
love this part of the writing process because it’s possessive; it’s
theirs.
With these ideas, conferencing one-on-one will only help
students to make their compositions stronger. Once the kids have
their ideas on paper, “formatted” in the way that makes them
happy, we are able to step into the process a bit and ask questions
to help them think a bit more critically. Asking students openended questions is good pedagogy regardless of the content being
taught. But to include it in a conference only aids in hedging kids
to think more about why it is they are writing what they’re writing.
Ask them about why they inserted white space where they did.
Does the poem sound the way the poet intended it to be read?
Conferencing individually with the student will help to
foster the appreciation for poetry. It’s not so helpful to tell Kasey
that he misused “their” for “there” or that he spelled “chartreuse”
incorrectly. Thinking back to that sea of faces, we need to instill
the importance of paying attention to our kids. What are they
trying to tell us about themselves? Are they lonely and vying for
our attention or are they angry about their parents’ recent divorce?
We need to listen to the way the kids read their poems to us. We
need to understand them significantly as individuals to be able to
offer praise and feedback in their composition endeavors. We are
not counselors by trade, but through free verse poetry, we’re able
to act as barometers and gauges for our students. It is with these
loose-guiding components that students who are normally averred
to the simple mention of the “p” word might actually receive the
idea that writing poetry is not as bad as it seems. These are the
students that we need to encourage to stop fussing and whining
about how difficult it is to write poems. Encouraging and teaching
in creative and innovative ways, through contemporary free verse,
makes it easy to get them to succeed.
To Grade or Not to Grade: That is the Question
Here’s a final question. How do you assess the work that
the kids have done over the past few weeks? It’s been a process to
get them to immerse themselves in poetry. Isn’t grading it just
going to undo all of the results you’ve worked so hard to ascertain?
Not necessarily.
One of the biggest controversies about assessing poetry,
and free verse specifically since it follows its own form and
function, is that poetry itself is subjective. Maybe too much so.
However, to not grade a student’s poetry will impress upon the
students that their work isn’t worth the time to receive a grade.
That will undo everything you’ve worked so hard to accomplish,
and you’ll be right back at square one, with Lindsay all up in arms
over why poetry is so useless to begin with. So how do we explain
our assessment standards to kids who, in today’s world, need
reasons for anything and everything? There are options; plenty of
them.
One way to introduce the idea of poetry assessment is to
create a “safe poem.” These “no-grade” or “safe poems” are
written based on guidelines set by us, the teachers. When the
students have completed – and remember, we should be writing
along with them – their “safe poems,” have them do a pair-share
activity. They should read over the poem from their partner and
comment on its effectiveness. When you get your hands on them
hold off on the grade. Instead, offer comments and suggestions so
that they are comfortable with the expectations of the parameters
of the assignment. Once this has taken place a couple of times,
then you may solidly construct the grading considerations. At this
point, formal assessment is one step closer.
Years ago, my eleventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Tully,
wrote a letter grade on the top of my paper, made comments in the
margins and at the end of it, and I was happy with the feedback she
gave. Gone are those days. In today’s world we are held
accountable as to why students receive the grades that they do, and
so rubrics are an indelible part of the educational system. A safe
and practical way to accomplish this is to lead the students in an
activity as a class, creating a class rubric – guided by us – for
assessing poetry. The largest issue is the infusion of the personal
and individual element of the student in each piece of poetry. How
do you judge someone’s personal experience as an “A” or a “C?”
In the unwritten rulebook of English teachers, you can’t.
Generating a class-created rubric eliminates this grey area. “The
bottom line seems to be the belief that students’ poems reflect the
individual authors so thoroughly that criticism of one equates to –
or at least is interpreted as – criticism of the other” (LeNoir 59).
It is best and least detrimental to the art of writing and
assessing poetry if you can create a rubric based around the
process of writing and the “behind-the-scenes” elements. “In other
words, we do not need to evaluate the poem as an isolated artifact;
we can evaluate the poem in the context of the process and in the
context of the course we are teaching” (60). The main focus and
objective of creating these rubrics is to call into light
characteristics that make the poem its best piece possible, not
questioning or attempting to change the personal nature of the
poem. LeNoir suggests handing out copies of poems to groups of
students and having them examine the pieces holistically. Then,
they should identify what constitutes an appealing poem.
Reporting back to the class, the entire group may then articulate
what the teacher might assess them upon regarding their personal
pieces. He offers good areas of assessment:

Creativity/originality – has the writer
extended his used of imagery?

Imagery – is the reader able to visually see,
hear, smell, taste, and feel what is being
described in the poem?
Readability/flow – are their natural places to
move or pause within the poem?

Style – has the writer created a tone that
identifies her as an individual?

Mechanical cleanliness

Effectiveness/cleverness in usage of
language and its devices
Using these elements for assessment, perhaps you fill in what a
mid-level poem would constitute with these ideas and categories in
mind. The students can fill in the elements of a poem that needs
work and revision versus a poem that has achieved great things in
these preexisting categories.
Another possibility, and perhaps in accordance with a
class-generated rubric, is the idea of a portfolio or collection of
poems. In this manner, you can achieve a number of goals. You
can offer a grade to a particular piece while viewing a wide array
of poems from a particular student. LeNoir suggests that in
collections, there is built a “context for the craft of the piece,
enabling teachers to make fairly specific – as well as general –
judgments” (61). Kasey is a fairly good speller. If in one piece he
has an abundance of nonstandard spellings, is it because they were
intentional, for an “attempt toward a particular effect,” as
evidenced throughout consistent non-standard spellings in other
pieces, or was it a fluke or typographical error? (61). Carousing
through the rest of Kasey’s collection enables me to decipher
whether or not he should be assessed for mechanical cleanliness or
style.
A last and important option is to have the students selfreflect and evaluate. They need to do this in order to grow as
readers, writers, and thinkers. Perhaps after a certain number of
compositions, they are asked to consider their strengths and
weaknesses thus far. Have them journal or quick-write in their
Writer’s Notebooks. Repeat the process at the end of the unit.
What have they learned about themselves throughout the unit?
Where do they stand as writers at the end of the unit as opposed to

where they stood at the outset? They will be able to look back and
visibly see the progress that they have been able to make. The
benefit is mutually exclusive for both us and them. They feel
encouraged by their progress. We feel more confident that when
faced with the possibility of finding themselves staring at a
contemporary free verse poem on the second day of the New York
State Regents, they will be armed with the tools to read and
understand the poem and short story they must thematically
connect.
Sharing the Blood, Sweat and Tears
So now you have all of these poems from your students,
piling high on your desk like the Sears Tower. They have been
graded, and, if you’re like me, you will instruct the students to put
their work into their writing folders to be pulled at the end of the
year for their culminating portfolios.
What a waste of time, energy and creativity.
Joel Kammer, an English teacher in Santa Rosa, California,
shared the same feeling. Imagine this: The auditorium is filled, and
kids, who have been working so diligently for the past few weeks,
are anticipatory of the night ahead of them where they will share
the element of performance into his poetry unit through his and his
colleagues’ culminating activity. His students are required to
“perform alone or as part of a group; they could incorporate music
if they chose; they had a maximum of three minutes to perform;
and they were limited to a single, original, poem” (69).
Kammer comments on how successful the event, called a
“Slam,” was, and that even the “soft-spoken” Joey Smith came into
his own that night on stage (69). Students are filled with so many
creative ideas that many times, we, as adults, forget how
discouraging it can be to be seen and not heard.
Events and culminating activities are rewards for efforts
and create a newfound energy for a topic that might normally be
met with groans and sighs in a classroom of teenagers.
One of the best ways to celebrate hard work is to share it –
publicly. Whether you entertain the idea of an open mic night or a
coffeehouse in the library, being able to celebrate the diligent
efforts of students is rewarding for both teachers and students. It’s
a great way to open your classroom, your philosophy of education,
and share your ideas with colleagues in a fun and informal way.
Kammer also offers other great methodologies in
culminating activities to a poetry unit. If you’re able to create and
maintain a website through the school, post student poems
regularly and have each student respond in their Writer’s
Notebooks to at least five, as Joel Kammer suggests in his article,
From John Donne to the Last Poets: An Eclectic Approach to
Poetry. And while you should instill some guidelines as to what to
post and not post on the website, the teacher explains that the
response to the website was almost overwhelming, with a finally
tally of over “3,000 postings to the site” (67).
The Final Farewell
We have done our best to equip our students with a new
outlook on poetry. It’s not all deep and laden with “hidden
meaning.” Sometimes, a poem can be written and read for sheer
surface enjoyment. Other times, there are different layers of
understanding with a poem. However we feel about it, or however
they feel about it, working with and introducing contemporary free
verse is not as painful as it sounds
Using this genre enables us to show those kids averred to
poetry that they can write and that it’s not intimidating if done with
the right objective in mind. They are individuals, and we need to
recognize them as such. Stemming from composition and reading
poetry, we are able to delve into other forms of poetry, just as
important as the study of free verse. By way of implementing
contemporary free verse at the outset of a poetry unit, we as
teachers are now outfitted with the tools we need to generate an
appreciation for other forms of poetry as well. So go ahead, and
show your Lindsay just how to change her opinion.
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