Instructify

Let’s do an exercise together. Find a favorite poem of yours – pull it down off the bookshelf or out of your head or the folder on your desktop – and recite a few lines.

If you just said a piece of Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses,” then somewhere in Georgia a law professor has also said those lines aloud, or maybe you and a student in Boston both love the sound of “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, or maybe you and I both just spoke “Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Whatever you chose, when you made it vocal the poem became a living thing beyond writer or reader. At least, so said Robert Pinsky, US Poet Laureate 1997-2000, in a recent lecture I attended.

Rolling your eyes yet? Maybe not, but most of your students probably would be, right? Not many kids get excited when it’s time for the poetry unit. Hopefully you’re interested in changing that, and Pinsky’s pet project favoritepoem.org is a great place to start. On the site are 44 excellently made mini-documentaries. It’s one fascinating film after another – from elementary schoolers to the President and his wife, Americans from across the spectrum each read their favorite poem and talk about how it came to be significant for them.

If all you need is a springboard, then the videos are a great tool, but the site also has lesson plans for all grade levels and ideas for school-wide events if you really want to kick things up a notch. Get your students having fun listening to and reading poems before you start cracking that analytical whip, or as Robert Pinsky put it: “don’t study the score before you’ve heard the music.” — MARIELLE PRINCE

Favorite Poem Project