This poetry unit is conceived for teachers for whom the road of learning is an active interdisciplinary verb, a way to weave together our academic and creative learning. The plan asks teachers to build cross-curricular lessons. This deep dive into what it means to be a creative writer is for educators who are lifelong students, activists, writers, researchers, journalists, and explorers of our threatened planet. The purpose of this study centers on foregrounding research alongside hands-on reading and writing activities as the basis for composing poetic narrative. While conferencing, conversation and collaboration are at the heart of a strong editing process, this unit seeks to distance writers from critique and to align students with exploration, study, and immersion in content and study, rather than focusing on writing something good according to conventional metrics. Students and teachers need to find innovative structures to develop and promote narratives that will keep us sane. Innovative writing technologies and performances deserve to be at the center of teaching practice not sequestered in classrooms. This curriculum introduces research as the basis for creative writing: personal essay writing, poetry writing mirrored in the seventeenth-century form of the commonplace book.
(Developed for Creative Writing, grades 11-12; recommended for Creative Writing and English, grades 9-12)
