Authors: Shameka Cunningham, McKinley E. Melton, Adrienne Danyelle Oliver, Carmin Wong

Target Group: All Ages

This is a generalized version of “Glenis Redmond: Context and Conversation – Workshop Lesson Plan”

Workshop Objectives

• Gain/strengthen language for talking about poetry
• Introduce a particular poet (with an emphasis on context and community)
• Empower students to envision themselves as part of the creative community

Community Workshop – Structure

Part One: Engaging with the poet’s life through the poet’s work

• Presentation: Provide participants with key biographical information, including historical context, key events/experiences, and relationships in their life.
• Discussion questions: What do we know about the poet’s life & experience? How does it impact their work, including and beyond poetry?
• Resources: Provide participants with video of the poet delivering a reading, giving a lecture, or engaging in an interview.

Part Two: Engaging with a specific poem, with an emphasis on form and craft

• Lead workshop participants through a “deep dive” into a single poem.
  • Highlight technical elements of the poem.
  • Review language for literary devices and strategic craft decisions, with a consideration of impact and how particular craft choices shape the experience of the poem.
• Creative exercise: Invite participants to model/replicate particular techniques in their own work.

Part Three: Engaging with a specific poem, with an emphasis on theme and content

• Meditate and reflect upon the resonant themes that shape the experience of this poem.
• Creative exercise: What’s going on in your life that would show up on the page?

Part Four: How do we think about this poem/poet in conversation with other poems/poets?

• Lead participants through a discussion of how this poem works alongside others (with respect to form and content).
• Provide participants with a “Further Reading List” that they can take with them, following the workshop.
• Creative exercise: Remind/Reinforce their understanding of how they are in conversation with this poem, based on the work that they have produced or might/will produce.