How to Earn an ELA Credit for Poetry

By request: How to Earn an ELA Credit for Poetry.

How to Earn an ELA Credit for Poetry

Poetry has become a popular topic with a number of teens these days. This is great because poetry can do so much for teens:

Poetry improves use of language in speaking and writing
- Reading and writing (and memorizing) poetry helps hone word usage and style.
Also, poetry can be a tool for emotional health and healing
- Poetry has been a supplemental treatment for mental health problems as far back as the ancient Greek physician Soranus. The Bible itself has lots of healing-type poetry written during hard times (the Psalms of Lament such as Psalm 130, Psalm 6, Psalm 38, Psalm 10, Psalm 42 and 43) or the book of Lamentations of Jeremiah.)

Some years ago, some homeschool high schoolers came to me and asked if they could earn a full credit of poetry for their English/Language Arts credit. They wanted a class format, but I’ll share with you what we did so you can do this with your homeschool high schooler or homeschool co-op.

If you are new to the idea of teaching poetry in high school start reading our Authoritative Guide to High School Poetry. It breaks down all the different curriculum we offer on teaching poetry.

So here is a suggested syllabus you can adapt to your needs (and your teens’ needs) that will pull together an interesting and inspiring Poetry credit (for English/Language Arts credit or an ELA elective).

Tips on How to Earn an ELA Credit for Poetry

Here are some things the homeschool parent needs to know:

Books and papers

Teens can make an entire Language Arts credit covered by a single topic such as poetry. This takes a little creativity since a full Language Arts credit requires some books and papers. The number of books to read and papers to write will vary by teen’s age and goals (the highlighted posts will help you decide).

The workbooks in this course will be counted as books for the booklist:

Introductory Guide to Poetry Writing
Intermediate Guide to Poetry Writing
British Poetry
Advanced Guide to Poetry Writing
Ol’ Possums Book of Practical Cats
American Poetry: Reading and Writing
World Poetry: Reading and Writing
Poetry Analysis

Traditionally, an English/Language Arts credit includes: Poetry, Short Story, Essays and Research Paper.

In this course, students write volumes of poetry, thus the workbooks will count for the Poetry, Short Story and Essays. The final unit of the year is Poetry Analysis. The assignments in this book will be gathered as a Research Paper.

Recording the credit

If your teens choose to earn a poetry credit, you can go about recording that the credit was earned in a couple of ways. Choose the one that is best for your teens.

Follow the syllabus, this will easily cover the scope and sequence of a poetry credit.
- Be sure to keep a copy of the syllabus (it has a course description, which your teens might need). If your teens are leveling up to Honors credit in poetry be sure they understand what to do for the extra work needed to add rigor for that credit.
Log hours to earn the credit using your state’s requirements for earning a Carnegie-hour credit.
- One credit courses tend to vary by state from 120-180 hours of educational experience. One-half credit courses tend to include 60-90 hours of educational experience.
- Honors credit is double the hours.

Grading poems, poetry lessons and poetry-topic papers

Use the rubrics in the guides, or the suggested rubric and guidelines for grading poetry in this post. Adapt these to your needs. It might help to take into consideration my view on grading poetry: I want teens to:

Have fun
Follow directions
Be inspired
Stretched gently
Gain confidence
Have fun

So these values will guide the “subjective points” (parts of the rubric or extra credit) when I figure out the grades. You can set some values for your teens’ learning and your grading.

More on the Scope and Sequence of a full poetry credit in this post.

Syllabus for Poetry Studies

This is a one-credit course where the student explores reading, watching, writing and memorizing poetry.

Texts

Click image for full description.
7Sisters Introductory Guide to High School Poetry Writing
Intermediate Guide to High School Poetry Writing
Literature Guide to British Poetry
Advanced Guide to High School Poetry Writing
American Poetry: Reading and Writing
World Poetry: Reading and Writing
Literature Study Guide for Old Possum’s Guide to Practical Cats
- And the book: Old Possum’s Guide to Practical Cats by T.S. Elliot
Poetry Analysis

Resources

Poetry resources and ideas for teaching
- More links for poetry videos in this post
Ilustrated poems put to music to aid memorization
Journal (traditional or digital)

Poetry Collections

Choose from the list below or choose a poet’s collection of your choice (note these can be obtained at the library or booksellers- we are Amazon affiliates):

NOTE: Poetry collections by a single author are usually 30-50 poems, so you can count a “100 Best Anthology” as two books for your booklist.

100 Best-Loved Poems (Dover Thrift edition)
101 Great American Poems (Dover Thrift edition)
Selected Poems by ee cummings
Favorite Poems of Childhood (Dover Children’s Thrift edition)
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (counts as 2 books)
A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
American Poetry to Read Aloud
audiobooks of poetry count
OR choose some digital collections from posts (about 30-50 poems will count as a book), for instance:

Unit 1: Poetry Credit Weeks 1-5: 7Sisters Introductory Guide to High School Poetry Writing

This no-busywork guide is a gentle introduction to writing poetry that will inspire you that you CAN write poetry (and enjoy the process). This guide introduces basic poetry-writing concepts.

You will read a poetry book for each unit. Read several poems per day to get through one of the poetry books listed above (or feel free to choose a collection of your own).