Background My Students Bring to the Unit
My students this spring spoke 11 languages and came from 18 countries, and entered the classroom with a profound appreciation of poetry. I begin the course by informally reading poems from their countries to build a sense of the value and commonality of poetic expression. Students were moved by a poem about two lovers who were killed on a bridge in Sarajevo. Students from Afghanistan were proud to read a Rumi poem with their classmates. A Senegalese student was thrilled to share that the founder of his country, Léopold Senghor, was a well-recognized poet. By the time we get to the unit on poems of home, students have a common appreciation for each other's countries' culture as well as for the value of poetry. Beginning with honoring their own traditions builds students' willingness to appreciate poetry in English.
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