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Writing Cultures: A Poetry Workshop for Creative Educators


Course Description

The aim in this course is to immerse teachers in the process of writing poetry, regarding themselves as writers and, based on this identity, creating more cross-culturally relevant, meaningful literacy instruction in their own classrooms.

Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Additional portfolio items: 1. Poem analysis 2. Reflective essay 3. Poetry draft 4. Revised poems 5. Performance


Athena Title

Poetry Educators


Equivalent Courses

Not open to students with credit in LLED 5710E or LLED 7710E


Grading System

A - F (Traditional)


Course Objectives

Students will: 1. identify, read, and write contemporary, cross-cultural poetry 2.acquire and use critical language for talking about poems we read, write, & revise 3. identify what metaphors poetry provides for the educator's life 4. establish a community of teachers who write and writers who teach.


Topical Outline

1. Introduction to Course; Introduction to Each Other a. Poetry Influences b. Autobiographical Poems 2. Issues to Consider: Craft and the Tools of the Poet a. Image b. Line c. Figuration d. Sound e. Voice f. Rhetoric & Abstraction 3. Villanelle 4. The Pantoum & Sestina 5. The Sonnet 6. Closed & Open Forms: How Sound and Form Enhance Meaning 7. Craft Essays: Voice and the Difficult View 8. Poetry and the Poetic Educator 9. Poetry and the Art of the Spoken Word 10. Poetry and Performance: the Classroom, Coffee Shop, the District Office and the DOE.


Syllabus