I teach all seniors and after my year with them they will be done with high school. I feel that gives me a profound responsibility to make sure they leave with something valuable, something worthwhile. So in addition to forcing another Shakespeare down their throat, and endless five paragraph essays, I will be strangling them with more poems. For some of them it will be their first experience with poetry so I don't want to mess up my one chance with them. Since I teach Honors level students as well as basic level students this unit is designed for any level.
As I reexamine my high school years and ponder the last few months of my students high school years it is so clear to me that we rob these once joyous kids of any possible joy school could give them by stupid, meaningless rules, the constant ringing of bells, unnecessary and annoying announcements, 7:30 in the morning at school still asleep, study for the culturally biased SAT's, feel badly when you don't do well, apply to school you can't afford because it doesn't matter anyway you won't get in. Okay, well, yes - I have a bit of anger over the crap that goes on in high school that they call "education." It makes me think of that Paul Simon song "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school it's a wonder I can think at all" so I, in my great wisdom, have decided to give my students something meaningful, that they can hold in their hearts and in their hands: I will give them poetry.
The following are my overall objectives for this unit:
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To introduce ways for high school students to enjoy poetry
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To encourage students to express themselves through poetry
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To familiarize my students with some new poems
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To take the fear out of poetry
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To facilitate a safe way for students to write their own poetry
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To help students see the connection between their music and the music of poetry
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To help students hear their work and how the sound of a poem or an analytical paper will
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improve their written work
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To develop public speaking skills
We will begin by reading an interview from Bill Moyers' book
The Language of Life
. He has a terrific interview with Quincy Troupe, whom he refers to as "the reigning World Heavyweight Poetry Champion," a title he won in 1994 at the Taos Poetry Circus.
