Notes that some students invent their own styles of poetry, and regularly use them in their writing. Recommends that teachers encourage this. Presents several examples of students' styles. (RS)

Discusses a form of poetry written for two voices--two side-by-side columns, each read by a different voice. Mentions precedents of this form in art, music, and poetry. Presents examples of fourth grade, high school, and university students' poems written in this form. (RS)

Describes five poetry assignments and presents examples of students' poetry written in response to the assignments. (RS)

Discusses the use of lists and classification in poetry throughout history. Gives examples of lists in verse from Elizabethan to modern times. Offers some basic types and functions of the "list poem." Relates the lists poems of a fourth grade class. (PRA)

Discusses the advantages of using student compositions rather than textbook materials in a college remedial writing course. (RL)

Discusses the experiences of a poetry writing teacher who teaches poetry to second-grade through high school physically challenged children using art as inspiration. Includes numerous examples of students' poetry, which demonstrate the depth, variety, complexity, and originality that art can bring out. (RS)

Describes how "The Sleeper" was used with third and fourth grade students to inspire them to use a variety of verbs. Shares several examples of poems the students wrote after discussing Whitman's poem. (MG)

Describes a successful unit of study on poetry in a fifth grade class that ended with students each writing a sonnet as a final project. (SR)

Describes three ways to elicit children's poetry about their family histories. Illustrates this teaching technique with sixth graders' poems. (RL)

Shows how photographs of teenagers were used to trigger high school students' creative writing. Provides samples of student poetry. (RL)

Contains examples of student work in dialog, either imitating literature or telling their own stories. Shows how to use this activity with other activities to develop and to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (RL)

Describes a successful program of "contemplation writing," in which, through a counting technique and a music technique, children learn how to contemplate their inner experience, write about it, and discuss it. (SR)

Discusses revision as a form of learning and as a response to all kinds of literature, whether imitating what went before, reacting against it, or making something genuinely new of it. Offers numerous writing activities based on this idea. (SR)

Urges writing teachers to cultivate the students' own expression of diverse or alien ideas, not just accept these diversities. Stresses that educators cannot expect young students of Hispanic or other cultures to initiate an open, creative exploration of themselves without an atmosphere of complete acceptance. (MG)

Reviews some of the author's own mistakes and successes to help guide other writers and teachers interested in projects in which they collaborate with a visual artist to improve students' writing skills and visual art ability. (MG)