UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS OF POETRY is a unit that can be altered to suit the teacher's particular preferences. You can spend 5 days or 5 weeks teaching poetry to your students. The following are some helpful hints:

1. The PowerPoint presentation at the beginning of the unit will introduce students to important terms that they should continue to refer to as they write their explications after each poem. You may want to quiz them on these terms because they should be very familiar with them.
2. The handouts for each type of poem will allow you to break down ideas and make it easier for the student to understand. You may choose other poems that fall under the categories if you choose. These handouts should be used as a basis for each lesson.
3. Samples of completed worksheets are subjective, so you may choose to alter certain answers.
4. The final project can also be altered. I have students hand in the poem ahead of time so I can compile an anthology that every student can keep. This way, each student has a book of poems of which they have heard detailed explanations.
5. Explications of poems are available on the web if you do a Google search. It is important to understand that people have different viewpoints of poems. I encourage you to seek out alternative explanations.
6. Think.com is an amazing tool that can be set up very easily. If you sign up as an administrator, it allows you to assign your students screen names and passwords. This site is free and can be used for various activities. Please Explore!!!