Living Voices: Multicultural Poetry in the Middle School Classroom

Students read and respond to Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry." Students then write about a favorite poem and imagine the perfect way to read it.

Students are assigned to be "poets of the day" and are provided several models to create, illustrate, and present their different poems to the class.

Pat Mora's poem "Echoes" demonstrates that our senses are powerful tools for literary analysis and comprehension as students use their senses to discover new ways to read and write.

Students often find poetry frustrating and meaningless. By helping students think critically about the differences between poetry and prose, this introduction sets the stage for different strategies for comprehending poetic texts.