Course Description
This semester course is for senior Creative Writing students interested in studying the craft of poetry and writing original poetry. An open mind and supportive attitude will be essential as we workshop each other’s poems. We will be exploring several approaches to the art of writing poetry through a variety of different exercises to generate poems in open and closed forms. Students will publish their best work in a class-produced literary publication. Other projects include recording our own spoken-word poetry CD, researching a modern-day poet to research and briefly presenting his/her findings. Students will organize their best original work into a final portfolio project, and as a class, we will seek contest and other publication opportunities.
Course Focus
This course is designed into two equal parts:
1. Poetry reading, studying, and discussion
• your reactions to poets and their work
• overall messages and tones of poems
• poetic elements’ connection to poets’ purpose
2. Writing and publishing original poems
• personal choice; individual inspiration from people, art, and the world in general; and reflection on others’ work will be used to inspire your poet’s pen
• approaches to writing and composing / how to draft then write poems
• different poetic formats and layouts, as well as lining and titling poems
• work-shop approach to writing poems: drafting, revising, peer-editing,
teacher/student conference time, and then sharing
Major Sections of the Course
• Daily writing time
• End of week read-arounds: students share their own polished, original work
• Weekly time to peruse poems and poets of your own choice from any era, classical to modern
• Weekly assignments relating to the poet’s craft and literary techniques
• Weekly work within a writing workshop group for peer feedback, support, revision, and editing
• Conference time with teacher to get feedback on poems and projects in progress
• Handouts pertinent to the course of study
Major Assignments
• Writing of two to five original, polished poems every two weeks
• Sincere writing workshop participation
• Preparation for class discussion of poems
• Modern Poet Presentation
· Spoken Word CD Project
• Final Portfolio Project
Course Outline (subject to changes and tweaks ☺)
Key Concepts
• Why poetry?
• When and how poems resonate
• Guidelines for reading poems
• Finding topics and suggestions—Poem Ideas List
• Models for approaching writing
• Writing Territories
• Lining and titling
• Format and layout; rhythm and rhyme; free and blank verse;
• Poetic elements
• TPCASTT
• How to choose a workshop group
• How to be an effective workshop participant
Weekly units (based on Kevin Clark’s The Mind’s Eye)
Unit 1 Words That Paint, Colors That Speak
Unit 2 The Lively Image vs. The Deadly Cliché
Unit 3 The Sound of Contemporary Poetry
Unit 4 Conflict and Transformation
Unit 5 Do Poems Have Plot?
Unit 6 Empathy and Creativity
Unit 7 Leaping Through Time and Space
Unit 8 Frames and Forms
Unit 9 Stanzas, Prose, and the Field of the Page
Unit 10 Surrealism
Unit 11 Writing About Sadness
Unit 12 Poetry and Eros
Unit 13 The Poetry of Witness
Unit 14 Stretching the Imagination
Unit 15 Breaking the Rules, Nurturing the Weird
End of 3rd Marking Period—Focus on class anthology, final portfolios, and spoken poetry CD recording
• EXAM PORTFOLIO=25% of final MP grade
