Poetry in the classroom Book

In his foreword, William Stafford attests, "You don't wait in this book . . ." And students won't. This inviting text creates a writing community in which young poets and writers thrive from the first. Readers of Important Words write in their own voices about the particulars of their own worlds. In the process, they will read and discuss the work of other writers dealing with similar matters. Authors Bill Brown and Malcolm Glass provide over 125 poems by both students and established poets. Many of these selections have, in fact, come out of the very same assignments now offered in this text. All of these assignments have been designed and developed over several years in secondary through college classrooms. Brown and Glass, both teachers and established poets, have structured Important Words to provide writing strategies that generate not only good poems but also students who come to know themselves eagerly and unself-consciously as poets. This text is meant for nearly any student from ninth grade up, inasmuch as almost any student is capable of writing powerfully and convincingly, given informed guidance and incentives. Student work based on strategies in this text has won numerous national awards; a remarkable amount has been published.