How to Teach Poetry for Homeschool High School

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How to Teach Poetry for Homeschool High School.

How to Teach Poetry for Homeschool High School

Everyone who knows 7Sister Vicki, knows she loves poetry and taught her teens (and our local homeschool teens) to love poetry also.

Unfortunately, there are lots of teens teens these days who have been trained by our modern culture to think of poetry in the same way they might think of liver and onions: It might be good for you but UGH! DISGUSTING!

In case your homeschool high schoolers have not had a chance yet to learn to love poetry, Vicki would like to share a few tips on why and how to teach poetry to teens.

One of the ways that Vicki inspired her local homeschoolers to enjoy poetry is teaching them poetry recitation. When they get started with it, teens actually find memorization and recitation to be rewarding (and even fun). For years, Vicki took the local homeschoolers to the regional speech meets for American Christian Schools International (ACSI allowed homeschoolers to participate as long as we provided judges). Often, our teens’ top performances were in poetry recitation.

At the ACSI speech competitions, there was a school from a large urban area. Most of the teens in the school were immigrants or inner-city youth. This school’s teens were always THE top performers in poetry recitation. Vicki once asked their advisor, Molly, why poetry was prioritized at their school.

Molly explained that poetry gave her teens words: vocabulary, word usage and communication skills in general. (She had the track record with these kids, too: Many of them, after high school graduation, went to high-powered colleges and became successful professionals, business people and educators.)

Vicki also saw the power of poetry memorization and recitation when she judged the annual poetry recitation at a local Classical school. The students at this school were mostly immigrant or low income, so would benefit from the skills gained from learning poetry. Many of these kids have graduated and become successful adults- poetry being a small but useful communication tool in their educations.

Why is poetry such a useful communication tool?

Poetry uses words powerfully

Unlike prose, every word in a poem has weight. Each word is chosen to convey the most emotion and biggest thoughts possible. Each word is chosen for:

Sound
Rhythm
Meaning
Purpose

In poetry, homeschool high schoolers learn ordinary and extraordinary words being used in powerful ways.

Vicki’s homeschool high school Language Arts classes had a poetry unit each year. As teens were learning poetry and then moved onto writing their research paper unit, they wrote high quality papers. This is because they had mastered some higher-order word-usage skills in their poetry unit.

Poetry is fun

Poetry is powerful when it is presented in a lighthearted fashion. Poetry done with good attitude inspires laughter and learning!

How to teach poetry in a way that teens enjoy

Start with inspiration. Show them a YouTube video each day with a cool poem presentation:

Go to Vicki’s Pinterest board. Here are a few favorites:
SM Lockridge Sunday’s Coming
A Tiny Poem to the World by Kid President
The Common Cold by Ogden Nash
Layli Longsoldier Whereas
Bullwinkle’s Poetry Corner
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe ready by James Earl Jones
Maya Angelou Just do Right
Litany by Billy Collins recited by 3 year old
Jannette Ikz Spoken Word Truth Without Photoshop
Amanda Gorman The Hill We Climb
Ezra Tillman’s Poetry for Memorization YouTube Channel (Lots of classic poems, illustrated and put to music). Here’s a link to a download with links to many of his YouTube presentation.

Each week in class or individually:

Pull a quote from a poem or about poem, for instance: “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” T.S. Eliot
If in co-op or group class (or even at home), have each teen pick a poem to read to the group.
- (Any size: haiku or sonnet or longer poem.) This is enormous for confidence boosting, really.
Build a word wall.
- Each week, teens add a word they found this week, with definition. Then share the word and where it was from with the group.
Write a poem together each week in the style of the poem being studied that week.
- DO NOT take this seriously! Allow laughter and silliness.
- If time, have teens break into groups and write a group poem along the same lines.
Each week have homework poem. Share the results between students (pass poems around in class). Teens start enjoying this process after the first couple of weeks!
Here are some suggestions:
- If you have teens who are terrified or totally inexperienced, start with 7Sisters 5-week unit: Introductory Guide to High School Poetry Writing
  - We start with couplets, no kidding.
- Next year follow up with 7Sisters 5-week unit: Intermediate Guide to High School Poetry Writing
- Then a year with 7Sisters 5-week unit: Advanced Guide to High School Poetry Writing
- Between Intermediate and Advanced, or after Advanced, your teens will enjoy studying and writing:
  - British Poetry with our British Poetry Guide
  - American Poetry Reading and Writing Guide
  - World Poetry Reading and Writing Guide
- Here are tips for grading poetry for homeschool high schoolers
- More on teaching poetry in this episode of Homeschool Highschool Podcast

Remember, all 7Sisters curriculum is no-busywork and is level-able to different interests and abilities.

Join Vicki for a discussion on how to teach poetry with your homeschoolers- and be sure to join us next week!

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