Grammar ofPOETRY

Grades 6–9+ · Matt Whitling

Poetry is a language of pictures and music. The Grammar of Poetry teaches both, one module at a time: a trope, an element of meter, and then a poem of the student’s own, written in imitation of a good one.

Thirty lessons for a semester, taught on video by Matt Whitling, superintendent of Logos School in Moscow, Idaho, where the course was first written and taught. The textbook is the workbook; the Teacher’s Edition holds the answers.

30 lessons
6 hours of video
One semester
Grades 6–9+

The bundleAll three below$119Save $7 The video course30 lessons, in the app$80 Teacher’s EditionAnswers, exam, grading$24 Student TextOne for each student$22

Choose what you need

Watch the course

Five videos, free, right here

The introduction, how the course runs, a homeschool mother on teaching it, a whole lesson, and one of the poems.

The animated introduction · 3 min

The course

Two lessons to begin, then nine modules

The opening lessons set up the Epiphany Chart, the student’s own store of things worth writing about, and teach how to read a poem aloud. Each module after that has a picture, a piece of music and an imitation.

Module ISimileRhyme · using a rhyming dictionary

Module IIMetaphorMeter, in two lessons

Module IIIPunThe iamb · an iambic imitation

Module IVPersonificationThe trochee · a trochaic imitation

Module VSynecdocheThe anapest · an anapestic imitation

Module VIHyperboleThe dactyl · a dactylic imitation

Module VIIOnomatopoeiaAlliteration · an alliterative imitation

Module VIIIRhetorical questionRefrain · a refrain imitation

Module IXOxymoron and euphemismSpatial poetry · a spatial imitation

“We will find poems of truth, beauty, and goodness and emulate them, and maybe if we’re diligent, we might in time become tolerable writers, too.”
Matt Whitling, from the preface

Word Hoard: The Rhetoric of Poetry

After the grammar, the rhetoric. Building on Fitting Words and the Grammar of Poetry, Joffre Swait’s Word Hoard teaches students to read, hear, write and perform poetry: English in its most elevated forms. “A practical guide to nobility.”

See Word Hoard