This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How and Why to Write Poetry in High School ELA.

How and Why to Write Poetry in High School ELA

One of Vicki’s favorite topics is poetry. What she knows is that writing poetry is good for teens!

Here are some reasons why it is good for teens to have experiences with poetry during high school It’s part of a solid English/Language Arts credit

Teens benefit from several kinds of writing in their homeschool high school years:

• Essays
• Research Papers
• Short Stories
• Poetry

Each of these types of writing requires different thinking and communicating skills. Variety of experiences creates a strong ELA credit for the transcript.

Poetry is a method of communication that uses words imaginatively

For instance, in normal life we communicate in sentences. Each sentence has a beginning, middle, and end…a subject and verb.

In poetry, we communicate with words that build imagery. The sentence structure may or may not be there. It’s a whole different way of communicating. When communicating through word images, poetry ignites imagination.

Students improve their speaking and writing

Over the years, Vicki has advised hundreds of homeschool high schoolers. Many reconnected with her during their college years to share about things that helped them in their college courses. Often, these college students shared that poetry reading, memorization, and writing prepared them for strong speaking and writing skills in college.

For example, in Freshman Composition class in college, teachers are grading hundreds of papers each semester. Many of these papers are excruciatingly boring. (Vicki has heard this from college teachers.) However, if a student that uses some poetry skills in their papers (such as a little bit of alliteration or an image-bearing word), it makes the paper more interesting and teacher’s life that teacher’s life so much better!

Writing poetry can be a tool for emotional health and healing

Teens benefit from journaling and writing poetry. Research has found that emotional health improves journaling poetry is a tool for better health.

The ancient Greek physicians, Soranus believed that poetry was part of the healing process. Today there are branches of psychotherapy that employ poetry-writing as a healing tool.

For more on poetry for health and healing, check out this post.

God is a poet

There is lots of poetry in the Bible.

• The Psalms are poems, of course
• The minor prophet Nahum is written in a poetic style, as well as:
• Job
• Ecclesiastes
• Song of Solomon

So, God obviously likes poetry.

Poetry improves vocabulary

When teens read poetry, and especially if they memorize it really does help improve their vocabulary. And what we’re finding is that the better vocabulary a person has, the better they’re able to think in problem-solving, forward-thinking, healthy-living kind of thoughts ways.

Poetry can be silly and fun

Sometimes teens just need som fun. They can have fun with poetry! For instance:

• Limericks are silly poems
• The poetry of Ogden Nash is full of silliness
• One of Vicki’s favorite books of poems is Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cat by T.S. Eliot.
  • In fact, 7Sisters has a popular Literature Study Guide for Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats!

 

For teens who love poetry: A Full Credit in Poetry

A few years ago, Vicki was teaching a group of homeschool high schoolers through the poetry components in their English/Language Arts. Some of the teens told her, “Next year, we want a full ELA credit in poetry!”

So, she created a class for them where they could earn a full credit in poetry (check out this post with the syllabus and guidelines).

Teens can make an entire Language Arts credit covered by a single topic such as poetry. This takes a little creativity since a full Language Arts credit requires some books and papers. The number of books to read and papers to write will vary by teen’s age and goals (the highlighted posts will help you decide).

The workbooks in this course will be counted as books for the booklist:

• Introductory Guide to Poetry Writing
• Intermediate Guide to Poetry Writing
• British Poetry
• Advanced Guide to Poetry Writing
• Ol’ Possums Book of Practical Cats
• American Poetry: Reading and Writing
• World Poetry: Reading and Writing
• Poetry Analysis

Traditionally, an English/Language Arts credit includes: Poetry, Short Story, Essays and Research Paper.

• In this course, students write volumes of poetry, thus the workbooks will count for the Poetry, Short Story and Essays. The final unit of the year is Poetry Analysis. The assignments in this book will be gathered as a Research Paper.

For more on teaching poetry, check out this Homeschool Highschool Podcast episode.

Even teens who don’t think they like writing poetry, often find that they do

For instance, in year one of our homeschool group ELA classes, one young man told Vicki he did not like to write, especially poetry. Vicki told him to hang on, that maybe he would find out that he does like poetry writing! The poetry section of the high school class, started out with couplets (couplets are just two lines of poetry, each line ending in a rhyme). When this young man realized that he could write couplets, his confidence increased.

Then he commented to Vicki, “I didn’t think I could do poetry, but I did this couplet.”

He kept building on that growth mindset and by the end of the school year, he was churning out poetry with all the rest of them. Now, he did not need to grow up and be a great poet because he wanted to be a firefighter, but he built more confidence with his ability to communicate with words.

Btw- he grew up to be a firefighter well-versed firefighter. Poetry was a little part of building his confidence!

Poetry is an awesome part of ELA credits! Join Vicki for a discussion on how and why to write poetry.

Thank you to Seth Tillman for editing!

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