Poetry

The groans that I have endured when I tell my students that we are about to start our poetry unit is enough to make anyone get a bit discouraged.  I have a few ideas that I know are powerful because many of my students leave my class saying that they have always hated poetry and now they actually like it.  A key factor in the enjoyment of any type of writing comes from the ability of your students to understand what they are reading.  Poetry deceives many teachers into thinking that they can get through so much more content in a day or unit, and that is the precice reason why students end up hating poetry.  To really enjoy poetry, you have to read it, play with it, gargle it, dance with it, fight with it!