Each week, Teach this Poem sends one poem, along with a curriculum and related curated teaching materials such as artwork, maps, and photographs, to more than 25,000 K-12 teachers.
Poems are selected to address timely topics, and classroom activities are designed to provide cross-disciplinary strategies for incorporating poetry into daily school work and encourage not only the appreciation of poetry, but also the development of creative and critical thinking skills.
Teach this Poem, a program of the Academy of American Poets, was named the winner of the $10,000 Innovations in Reading Prize from the National Book Foundation.
The Innovations in Reading Prize is annually awarded by the National Book Foundation to an individual or organization that has developed an innovative project which creates and sustains a lifelong love of reading in the community they serve.
Teach this Poem is available free to teachers. Nearly 8,500 poems have been sent so far, and you can browse them all here.
Other programs of the Academy of American Poets include weekly job postings for poets; a search function that allows poets to connect with other nearby poets; and plenty of teacher resources.
Visit the Academy of American Poets at www.poets.org or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and SoundCloud.
The mission of the National Book Foundation is to celebrate the best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture.
The National Book Foundation is guided by the following core beliefs:
- Books are essential to a thriving cultural landscape
- Books and literature provide a depth of engagement that helps to protect, stimulate, and promote discourse in American society
- Books and literature are for everyone, no matter where the reader is situated geographically, economically, racially, or otherwise
Visit the National Book Foundation on the web at www.nationalbook.org or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.