Teacher’s article stresses that each of us is a poet

Teacher’s article stresses
that each of us is a poet

Rachel Basden

SOUTH RIVER — A recent article about teaching poetry by Rachel Basden, a seventh-grade teacher at South River Middle School, has been published in the English Journal.

The January issue of the journal, published by the National Council of Teachers of English, focused on teaching and writing poetry, according to Basden, who submitted the article last spring after the journal called on secondary and college English teachers to send in manuscripts.

As a teacher in South River for the past five years, Basden has taught different types of poetry such as verse and rhyme. According to her article, she tells her students that poetry does not have to rhyme.

"Creating images is the key," Basden wrote.

The article, which appears in the "Teacher to Teacher" section of the journal, outlines several exercises that teachers can do with students. For example, Basden does free-writing exercises with her students that begin by using a word or phrase, or even conjuring up images inspired by music.

"It’s amazing to see the thoughts that come out of people’s minds when given the right stimulus," Basden says in her article.

She also instructs her students to shape ideas in their heads to create poems by bracketing images into ideas that are related. Basden wrote in her article, "Though we often think that our minds are racing a mile a minute, with little or no rhyme or reason, there are definite patterns and purposes to our thought processes."

Basden, who is also the team leader for the seventh-grade classes, is the adviser for the middle school’s newspaper, which is published quarterly during the school year, she said. Students submit poetry to be included in the last section of each issue of the newspaper, Basden said. The poetry often deals with issues going on in the world or in the students’ personal lives, she said.

"They get to see that, despite their previous experience, each one of us truly is a poet," according to Basden.