ABSTRACT
It is almost a given that a teacher who wants to introduce her students to poetry can anticipate their dismay and disinterest. Yet, young children adore poetry—rhythm and rhyme and the magic of sounds and words. They’re natural metaphorists. Clearly, leaping over the hurdles of negative attitudes of older students or getting younger ones started on the right track is a major teaching problem. Young adolescents bring so much background and imagination to the classroom. Their reactions to literature are often surprising, both in their insight and in their naivete. Slowly, students develop an appreciation and understanding about poetry through listening, reading, writing, and illustrating poetry. They begin to know why they like a work or not and to appreciate the effort that goes into writing poetry. Through the teacher-selected poems and through their own selected poems, they begin to see patterns that say, “This is poetry.”.
