Poetry in America for Teachers: The City from Whitman to Hip Hop

In this course, we consider those American poets whose themes, forms, and voices have given expression to visions of the city since 1850. Beginning with Walt Whitman, the great poet of nineteenth-century New York, we explore the diverse and ever-changing environment of the modern city—from Chicago to London, from San Francisco to Detroit—through the eyes of such poets as Carl Sandburg, Emma Lazarus, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Marianne Moore, Frank O'Hara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hayden, and Robert Pinsky, as well as contemporary hip hop and spoken word artists. This course introduces content and techniques intended to help students and educators learn how to read texts of increasing complexity. Readings and activities were chosen and designed with the Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) standards in grades six through 12 in mind. Enrollment is not limited to teachers. Students with an interest in education, or with the poets and poems covered in this course, are welcome to enroll.