Benjamin Green

Beyond Roses are Red Violets are Blue: A Practical Guide for Helping Students Write Free Verse Benjamin Green

For many teachers, poetry can be a difficult subject to teach. Poet Benjamin Green makes it easy with this practical and insightful book.

His step-by-step process is halfway between formulaic fill-in-the-blank exercises and open-ended (?Write a poem about peace?) assignments.

With clear examples, Green talks students through each of 25 exercises, helping them create high-quality, thoughtful poems. The process begins with ?word gathering,? a series of prompts designed to generate words, phrases, information, ideas, and images. Students then ?extract? a poem from this material, choosing the most interesting and descriptive words. Finally, Green guides them through the revision process, using a series of questions to help them refine and polish their work. The book also includes suggested readings and samples of poems created by real students.