When Don Imus made his infamous comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team in 2007, he provoked widespread (yet short-lived) attention to the circulation of language practices demeaning to women of color. In an elective autobiographical writing course that the author designed with and for urban high school girls, the students…

Discusses the purpose and method for getting youngsters to approach a piece of literature with these queries: I wonder what a fellow human being had to say here...." What's his vision of things?..." I wonder how this composer has used language to express his thoughts, feelings, and dreams." (Author/RB)

A tongue-in-cheek appeal for greater recognition and appreciation of a fictitious contemporary poet. (RD)

Just as we learn how to vote by comparing records, by analyzing statements, by fitting what we see and hear to our own measurements, we can develop our own standards in the process of evaluating and enjoying poetry. (RL)

Analysis of Conrad Hilberry's poem Hamster Cage". (SP)

An interpretation of Ferlinghetti's poem, 15." (RD)

A mock-serious particularized and structuralized fuller application of a poem to the totality of experience." (Author/SP)

Offers one teacher's approach to teaching Robert Hayden's poem "The Whipping," along with her students' responses to the poem. (ARH)

Describes a study in which students taught by a creative method liked poetry more and understood it better than those taught by a directed method. (DD)

An experienced secondary teacher shares some common misconceptions about literary analysis. The activities, which help the students to practice theory and read drama, poetry and fiction, are described.

Outlines the differences between mediocre and good poetry, asserting that most objections to poetry are really objection to bad poetry or poetry poorly taught or ignorantly read and concluding that good poetry is a way of knowing and a method of organizing perceptions. (SRT)

Presents a unit on Black American poetry by approaching it in five categories: slavery, acquiescence, integration, separatism, and militancy. (MM)

The article stresses the importance for teachers to teach poetry for what it is and can do, and trust that the student will find for it a place in his own life. (Author/LF)

Emphasizes the advantages of offering a variety of oral interpretations to students. (DD)