English Teaching Forum 2006, Volume 44, Number 1
This issue features an article on U.S. Poet Laureates and contains contemporary American poems and a lesson plan on reading, writing, and performing poetry. Other articles discuss reading strategies, teaching politically correct language, and using comic strips and radio programs in the classroom.
Resources In This Collection
The author believes that using comic strips in language-learning classes has three main benefits. First, comic strips motivate younger learners. Second, they provide a context and logically connected sentences to help language learning. Third, their visual information is helpful for comprehension. The author argues that comic strips can be used in exercises of reading and other skills areas. The author provides four activities that use comic strips.
This article starts with the view that most poets believe that poetry should be understandable and accessible to everyone. The article then introduces the poetry and ideas of Ted Kooser, a famous poet born in Iowa. Following the stories of Ted Kooser, the article introduces what a poet laureate is, how long they serve, how they are chosen, how much pay they get, what they do, and six poet laureates of the past two decades. The history of the Library of Congress is introduced at the end.
