Is poetry a one week unit you dread?  Does the fact that the ELAR TEKS mention poetry give you nightmares? Don't know Billy Collins from Billy Ray Cyrus? Can't tell antithesis from an anteater? Are you the Villanelle Idiot?  Then this is the session for you. 

In this workshop, we will target specific STAAR poetry skills, helping the Poetically Impaired to find painless ways to read, understand, analyze, and TEACH poetry to modern students without, as Billy Collins poetically puts it, having to "tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it."

We will also examine how to use poetry as a starting point to help students master readiness standards in other genres.