Risking Intensity: Reading and Writing Poetry with High School Students

By Judy Rowe Michaels

Risking Intensity is a book about drawing on the self--to study poetry, to write it, and to share it. Judith Michaels approaches the subject at both the personal and practical levels, opening the world of poetry to her classes through carefully planned strategies. Poems by students and teacher illustrate each topic. We also hear the cadences of published poets--of Keats, Wordsworth, Clifton, Thomas, Komunyakaa, Basho, and others.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814141714
• ISBN13: 9780814141717
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English (Ncte
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 9.1" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Must have for all teachers

As a teacher and graduate professor, I cannot say enough about this book. It alone brought me from a reluctant writing teacher (with an intense fear of poetry) to a teacher who lives and breathes to teach writing (and poetry). When I teach teachers, this is the first book I tell them they need to read in order to transform themselves and their classrooms. Amazing book!

A holistic, respectful, and playful focus on sense of self

As a mental health professional and former English teacher, I read Risking Intensity with particular interest in its holistic, respectful, and playful focus on sense of self as a foundation for teaching, writing, and being. Some emphasis must be given to the playful side of this book, as there is much humor and sensitivity to the ironies of human life. Distinctive features are author Michaels' artful inclusion of proven class activities and student work to illustrate the mind-body relationship in the creative process and her thoughtful guidance to teachers (readers) in understanding their own process as poets. Reading this book is an unfolding, organic process in itself, reflecting the content of the book and making it eminently re-readable.