God is a Poet – Introducing Poetry to High School Homeschool Students

I was asking my homeschool high school group-class students if they enjoyed poetry. Most of the class hastily asserted, “NO”.

Then I asked if they had studied any poetry. Most answered a bit hesitant, “Not much.”

God is a Poet – Introducing Poetry to High School Homeschool Students

Well, that was an exciting moment because I got to open their eyes to the fact that they had missed studying poetry by the most famous poet ever:

God!

That’s right. God himself was a poet. Read the Psalms. All the Psalms are poetry. We could just as well call that book: “Poems”.

Look at the words that God gave the prophets to say. Often it was in poetic form (the entire book of Nahum is poetic in style, for instance).

God is not the only poet from ancient times. In those old days, people wrote their stories in poetic style. The original forms of many works were poetry, including: Beowulf, Greek epics such as Homer’s Iliad, and the Epic of Gilgamesh 

In times not too long past, writing poetry and reading poetry was household entertainment. Take for instance, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. The Dashwood family’s evening amusement centered around reading poetry to each other. 

God thinks and expresses himself in poetic ways

God inspired the Psalms and the poetic parts of the prophetic writings. Poetry is a beautiful and creative kind of expression…just like God is beautiful and creative. He creates our teens to be beautiful and creative, also. When we help our homeschool high schoolers to discover that poetry resides in them, also, they will feel empowered to explore making their own beauty and creativity.

Great writers of former days expressed themselves in poetry. God himself is a poet. If our homeschooling high schoolers have no sense of poetry, if they only read and write prose, they are going to miss out on part of the mind of God and important connections to our cultural past and present.

After that conversation with my class, I convinced them to read a Psalm with me each class period, then we worked through British Poetry and TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. 

They began learning to create their own basic poetry, too with the Introductory Guide to High School Poetry Writing, which takes them step-by-step, day-by-day with NO busywork through the basic skills of creating poetry.

The 7 Sisters Study Guides they will use contain no-busywork, are simple enough for beginners to understand and enjoy AND hopefully will give the soul of poetry to the kids so they can understand. I want to give them a good introduction to poetry writing. 

Also, for teens who get excited and want a full year/full credit of poetry, here’s a syllabus for a poetry credit to walk them through the process.

Are your homeschooling high schoolers reading and writing poetry, too?

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Poetry High School Homeschool