Year 7: Poetry

Oh the joys of poetry! If we hadn't started reading poetry pretty early on, I might have been of the opinion that some of these poems are somewhat advanced for ME, let alone my kids... but, to the contrary, I'm actually excited to read these with the boys. Javen jumps at the chance when it's his turn to attempt the readings! What fun. :)

While, I personally love poetry, I still would like to learn a LOT more. You'll see that I've added a LOT of Helpful Links below in my search for online resources. They are mainly for my own reference, of course you're welcome to check any of them out that look interesting! ;)

Here are the AO year 7 poetry selections, to be split up over the three terms:  

• Oxford Book of English Verse (listed as Bulchevy's because of the Oxford Trademark); Find a complete table of contents here, use it to search for titles at librivox.org; or Buy the Book!

• Idylls of the King (audio) and The Lady of Shalott (audio); Death of King Arthur; La Morte d'Arthur (audio); Ulysses (audio); The Lotos Eaters (audio); Mariana; and Mariana in the South 

• John Keats, especially The Eve of St. Agnes 10 poems here Audio: Selected Poems of John Keats at librivox.org

Beginning in Form IV, Mason had the students note the metre and other technical details of the poems. See Helpful Links for Students below* for some really great online resources for teaching these details.





In year 7 as scheduled, we've started A Grammar of Poetry, by Matt Whitling. I highly recommend this book for teaching the beginning ins and outs of reading, writing and criticizing poetry. It's presented in a simple, quick and concise way. If you know exactly what you're looking for, you could probably search out all the materials for free on the internet, but to me, it is totally worth it to have bought the book! (The teacher's guide is GREAT!) If you do one lesson a week, your students should be able to begin to apply their new skills (noting meter and other technical details) to the y7 poetry selections by the second term. I'll have to let you know how this goes! ;)

For Recitation:
Praise of Woman (audio) & The True Knight
Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett

Helpful Links:
AO Poetry Schedule
Y7 Poetry Selections

{The following links, I selected because of the potential helpful content for us the teachers. I didn't thoroughly screen the sites, though in most cases I did look through the pages that are actually linked to. I mostly had teacher reference in mind though, so please don't set your students loose with them just because you found the links here ;) }

Schmoop - an online poetry textbook, boasting a great variety of classic poetry, and as they say, 'we speak student'. Shmoop.com is a digital textbook publisher and, as the site describes itself, "every teacher's and student's new BFF." I enjoyed reading this site :)
How to read a poem - in shortest, short, medium-ish and very, very long versions. 
Tips for Teaching Poetry - many ideas, some adaptable for co-ops and homeschools :)
Committed to Memory - an article written by a poet on the whys and hows of memorization/recitation of poetry
Terms for the Tools of Poetry - a great list of important terms, may be of special use to parents.
Listening for Tone - very interesting idea using a poem in Spanish to identify tone w/o understanding the actual language.
Teacher's Lounge - youngpoets.ca has compiled some very interesting articles for teaching poetry
Craft of Poetry - material about the fundamentals of poetry writtne in a fun way from a course used at University of Northern Iowa
Poetrykit.org - offers online poetry courses (not free)
poetrymagic.co.uk - provides a great checklist for critiquing poems
Poetry Glossary - useful for a checklist of sorts
Online Poetry Resources - poet.org
Ablemuse - a poetry forum for submitting and critiquing poetry
OpenUniversity's poetry course (free) - I have no idea if this is good... open course ware is a great idea!


Helpful Links for Students*:

{These links seemed very student friendly, and I did not see any unwholesome ads, but again, please always be careful!}

Poetry Meter
Rhythm, Scansion and Meter Made Easy - a quick reference guide
Poem Structure - Lines & Stanzas
Ryhme Schemes
Poetry Prompts and in that same vein some Story Starters
Types of Poems
How to Write Poetry