A Review of The Art of Poetry

Working through different types of literature in a homeschooling setting can be an arduous task.  I am a lover of literature of all types; however, my children tend to favor fiction books and have always looked upon the study of poetry with dread.  Enter Classical Academic Press. We have been so privileged to use and review one of the newest studies from this high-caliber company.  The Art of Poetry is a study, written by Christine Perrin, that has begun to take my middle school and high school children from dreading poetry study, to actually anticipating and enjoying it. 

The Art of Poetry is available as a complete set, including the student workbook, teacher’s edition, and dvd set, for $99.95; or priced individually at $24.95 for the student text, $29.95 for the teacher edition, and $69.95 for the dvd set. It is geared toward children in middle school – high school (so, around 7th – 12th grade)

When we found out we were going to receive this curriculum to use and review, I was excited.  I have used Classical Academic Press products with my children before and know that they always exhibit the highest quality in their products.  The Art of Poetry is no exception. 

I began by examining the student and teacher editions and viewing the dvd that we received.  At first perusal, I was totally impressed.  The teacher edition includes the complete student text as well as teaching notes, answers to the lessons, explanations of the poems, quizzes with answers, and a poetry timeline.  It is really nice, as a teacher, to have the student text included in the teacher text.  I like to be able to follow along with my kids without having to ‘steal’ their books. I also downloaded the free helps available on the Classical Academic Press website.  The links to the free helps are toward the bottom of the page.  There is a sample of both the student edition and the teacher edition available; an mp3 file of poetry readings; and a four page document detailing multiple different suggested schedules. The suggested schedules were a God-send for me.  I love to have studies organized day-by-day, and so do my kids.  With this, I was able to adjust and assign work to all three kids, tweaking assignments to customize the study to their ages.

My seventh grader is working on the most basic of the assignments (vocabulary, finding elements in some poems, etc..), while my 10th and 12th graders are getting deeper into poetry through interpretation and writing assignments. We are working through a chapter a week (which is the suggestion for the year long schedule).  So far, we have been studying through the elements of poetry such as imagery and metaphor. The kids are keeping their own writer’s journals where they record vocabulary terms and complete writing assignments.  In the imagery section, for example, they were encouraged to look for images in the poems we read as well as in everyday life.  Watching the dvd for this chapter helped the kids really get a grasp of what images are and why they are used.  It is really great that the dvd’s have been made as a classroom panel discussion with students who are around eighth grade in age.  I have loved the writer’s journal idea because I have been sharing one student text between three children.  I schedule them so they are working on their poetry at different times since they do some different assignments; but, we do some things, like watching the dvd and discussing the overall lesson, together.

     As we complete the remaining ten weeks in our school year, The Art of Poetry will definitely be a continued study.  I am so excited that we won’t actually complete the book this year, because that means that we can carry over our poetry study into our new school year.  I think poetry appreciation, poetry history, and poetry interpretation are becoming lost arts among our children and this curriculum is thorough enough to allow my children to develop and hone those skills.  I can see a crossover between skills learned in our poetry study to other areas of literature as well.  That is what is so beautiful about literature.  The elements of literature and the skills of interpreting all genre of literature are universal.  I highly recommend this study for any family that is ready to dig deep into the study of poetry in a completely non-threatening way. 

     For even more fun, discussion, and ideas, you can visit The Art of Poetry blog. To read more reviews about The Art of Poetry, as well as other products from Classical Academic Press, click on the banner below.