360 Degrees of Text: Using Poetry to Teach Close Reading and Powerful Writing

Youth culture is rich with poetry, from song lyrics that teens read, listen to, and write, to poetry they perform through slams and open mics. The rich, compact language of poetry both inside and outside the classroom plays a valuable role in bridging the divide between youth culture and academic culture. Whether we call it critical literacy or just making meaning, being able to read and analyze with precision and judgment empowers all students, not just in their academic courses but in everyday situations that require thoughtful evaluation and response.

Through Eileen Murphy Buckley’s 360-degree approach to teaching critical literacy, students investigate texts through a full spectrum of learning modalities, harnessing the excitement of performance, imitation, creative writing, and argument/debate activities to become more powerful thinkers, readers, and writers.