Poetry in schools.

[Richard]

I use a lot of poetry in my classroom. However, it only covers part of the curriculum, so time needs to be spent on other things like essay writing and preparation for the provincial exam (standardize testing). Personally, I would love the chance to spend an entire course just on poetry, and to break it down by period and just give a full flavor of how important it is to being human. Of course, I didn't really experience that as a student until university, so that raises the question of whether or not high school or middle years students would be ready for an entire course on poetry. As well, I think a lot of thought would have to go into picking what poems to cover because that could make or break the course, but I would love the chance to teach such a course.