5 Reasons to Start the New School Year with a Poem

Checklist for the first day of class: take attendance, outline classroom rules, hand out the syllabus, and (hopefully) a poem. IMHO, a poem is a perfect first lesson for the new school year. No one wants to dive head first into a novel on the first day (and heaven forbid you teach grammar!); most of my students already know each other, so a getting-to-know-you game is not a productive use of time. Here are five reasons why I begin the new school year with a poem:

1. You'll get to know your class

I love getting-to-know-you games as much as the next teacher, but I believe that engaging with a poem is another great way to get to know you class at the beginning of the new school year. By engaging with a poem together you'll get to see the personalities in each class emerge. You'll see who your reserved personalities are and who is more extroverted. You'll see who has good classroom skills (i.e. the note takers) and where there is room for growth.

2. Students will get to know you

You remember the feeling of sitting in class at the beginning of the new school year and having so many questions about your new teacher. Is he boring? Will she call on me? Does he give a lot of homework? Does she have us work in groups? By engaging with a poem your new students will get to know who you are as an instructor and classroom manager. They'll see your teaching style and know right off the bat who they'll be spending the year with.

3. The pencils are still sharp

That's my way of saying that students are (usually) energized after summer break and they're at their most eager to learn. Capitalize on that new school year energy to start meeting some learning goals. Chances are that a student who has lost their notes and not stayed up to date with the reading in October is ready to learn in August (or September). Start filling those pristine notebooks and newly sharpened pencils with terms like simile, enjambment, personification, and caesura.

4. A poem is a one day lesson

Student schedules are fluid during the first few days of school as classes are added and dropped. If you have a student miss the one-day poetry lesson, it is easy to have them catch up. If you jump right into a novel, then students who join your class later may have missed introductory material that they'll need for the next few weeks (or months). Having a contained one-day lesson allows for the hectic fluidity of the new school year.

5. Puts poetry front and center

By starting the year with poetry you put it front and center--thereby showing its importance. You may know an ELA teacher who avoids poetry all year and then rushes through a few verses at the end of the year (when everyone is exhausted) in order to meet state standards. Whether they intended to or not, that teacher is communicating that poetry isn't as much of a priority as other things like writing, grammar, or novels. By leading with poetry you are communicating its value in the ELA cannon.

Not sure what poem to start the new school year with? I have a FREE lesson for teaching Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool," which is a time-tested hit with students. I've also had a lot of success with Rudyard Kipling's "If-" and Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B."

Is there a poem that you've used at the start of the new school year with success? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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