Making Walt and Emily Pop!

[Alicia Rosenbaum]

I teach in a high poverty, rural school and I am getting ready to teach Dickinson and Whitman to my 11th grade classes. Any ideas for making these two fabulous poets POP! I thought about focusing on Dickinson's obsession with death and Whitman's sexuality because these are always interesting to teens, but I fear homophobia would become a focus for my students.

[Katie Wisnosky]

You can sing all of Dickinson's poems to the tune of "Gilligan's Island" ---they usually think that is neat and then I challenge them to each try reciting one themselves to the beat of the theme song.