Teaching Poetry from the Inside Out.

The article discusses methods of teaching poetry that is the language of others who may or may not relate directly to the students' cultural lives, passions and struggles. It is the responsibility of literature and reading teachers to help students understand and connect to text, especially to those who sometimes consider poetry incomprehensible jargon that uses devices of years past with themes removed from contemporary society. One way to engage students in understanding poetry is to let them write poetry before analyzing it as opposed to introducing poetry using intimidating pieces of writing and then asking students to analyze the text.