Grammar ofPOETRY

Imitation in writing · Matt Whitling

The building blocks of poetry, learned by imitation. In thirty lessons Matt Whitling takes students from simile and rhyme through meter, the four poetic feet and ten tropes, and has them write in each form as they go.

Developed and taught at Logos School in Moscow, Idaho. A semester for grades 6–9, and just as good for an older student, or a parent who never learned how a poem works.

  • 30 lessons
  • 6 hours of video
  • One semester
  • Grades 6–9+
  • The textbook is the workbook
Watch the animated introduction3 min

Choose what you need

Most families take all three.

Students1a Student Text each

All three: that’s the bundle. You save $7.

In your cart: the Grammar of Poetry bundle

Total$119

The video course opens in the app as soon as you order. Teaching a class or co-op? Group licensing

What the course teaches

Poetry is a language of pictures and music.

So the book defines it in Lesson One, and the course is built on it. “In each module we will typically study one trope, one element of meter, and then do an imitation.” Grammar of Poetry, Lesson One

Pictures

Ten tropes: the pictures poets paint with words, one in each module, with a riddle or two to solve.

  • Simile
  • Metaphor
  • Pun
  • Personification
  • Synecdoche
  • Hyperbole
  • Onomatopoeia
  • Rhetorical question
  • Oxymoron
  • Euphemism
Music

Meter and rhyme: how to hear the beat of a line and mark it, the four feet, and how to use a rhyming dictionary.

  • Rhyme
  • Meter
  • Iamb
  • Trochee
  • Anapest
  • Dactyl
  • Alliteration
  • Refrain
  • Spatial poetry
Imitation

Each module ends with a good poem to scan and then imitate, so students write in every meter they learn, the way Franklin taught himself to write from The Spectator.

  • Iambic
  • Trochaic
  • Anapestic
  • Dactylic
  • Alliterative
  • Refrain
  • Spatial

The course

Three parts, one course

The video teaches the lesson, the Student Text holds the work, and the Teacher’s Edition holds the answers.

The video course

$80

Matt Whitling teaches every lesson on video, with the poems on the screen beside him.

  • 30 lessons in 6 hours, with a conclusion
  • Eight poems from the course, read aloud
  • In the Roman Roads app, yours to keep

Teacher’s Edition

$24

Every student page with the answers filled in, and what you need to run the class.

  • Instructions and a schedule
  • The final exam, with its answer key
  • How to grade poetry; notes to homeschoolers

Student Text

$22

The textbook is the workbook: one for each student, written in and torn out.

  • Practice, activities and review in every lesson
  • Perforated pages
  • An anthology of poems and a glossary
The bundle: all three for $119. Bought separately, they come to $126.Choose what you need

Watch before you buy

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.

Play The animated introductionThe animated introduction · 3 min

The video course

Thirty lessons in nine modules

Two opening lessons, then nine modules of a trope, an element of meter and an imitation. Lengths from the app; Lesson 23 is free to watch.

Opening

  1. 1–2Introduction, the Epiphany Chart, How to Read Poetry26:10

Module I

  1. 3Simile trope20:11
  2. 4Rhyme20:25
  3. 5Using a Rhyming Dictionary15:08

Module II

  1. 6Metaphor trope8:02
  2. 7Meter, Part One10:34
  3. 8Meter, Part Two10:08

Module III

  1. 9Pun trope12:17
  2. 10Iamb foot30:05
  3. 11Iambic Imitation8:49

Module IV

  1. 12Personification trope10:10
  2. 13Trochee foot22:30
  3. 14Trochee Imitation7:11

Module V

  1. 15Synecdoche trope14:19
  2. 16Anapest foot16:24
  3. 17Anapestic Imitation9:49

Module VI

  1. 18Hyperbole trope11:17
  2. 19Dactyl foot16:43
  3. 20Dactylic Imitation8:10

Module VII

  1. 21Onomatopoeia trope12:42
  2. 22Alliteration6:59
  3. 23Alliteration ImitationFree8:33

Module VIII

  1. 24Rhetorical Question trope9:44
  2. 25Refrain6:10
  3. 26Refrain Imitation7:39

Module IX

  1. 27Oxymoron trope16:07
  2. 28Spatial Poetry6:08
  3. 29Spatial Imitation2:42
  4. 30Euphemism trope6:01
  5. Conclusion5:33
Look inside

Pages from both books

Student Text: Lesson One, Introduction, pp. x–1
Student Text: Lesson One, Introductionpp. x–1 · 1 of 5
The full contentsStudent Edition
  1. Preface: A Defense of the Classical Tool of Imitationix
  2. Lesson One: Introduction and Epiphany Chart1
  3. Lesson Two: How to Read Poetry5
  4. Module I
  5. Lesson Three: Simile (trope)11
  6. Lesson Four: Rhyme17
  7. Lesson Five: Using a Rhyming Dictionary21
  8. Module II
  9. Lesson Six: Metaphor (trope)27
  10. Lesson Seven: Meter (Part 1)31
  11. Lesson Eight: Meter (Part 2)35
  12. Module III
  13. Lesson Nine: Pun (trope)41
  14. Lesson Ten: Iamb (foot)47
  15. Lesson Eleven: Iambic Imitation53
  16. Module IV
  17. Lesson Twelve: Personification (trope)57
  18. Lesson Thirteen: Trochee (foot)63
  19. Lesson Fourteen: Trochaic Imitation69
  20. Module V
  21. Lesson Fifteen: Synecdoche (trope)73
  22. Lesson Sixteen: Anapest (foot)79
  23. Lesson Seventeen: Anapestic Imitation85
  24. Module VI
  25. Lesson Eighteen: Hyperbole (trope)89
  26. Lesson Nineteen: Dactyl (foot)95
  27. Lesson Twenty: Dactylic Imitation99
  28. Module VII
  29. Lesson Twenty-One: Onomatopoeia (trope)103
  30. Lesson Twenty-Two: Alliteration107
  31. Lesson Twenty-Three: Alliterative Imitation113
  32. Module VIII
  33. Lesson Twenty-Four: Rhetorical Question (trope)119
  34. Lesson Twenty-Five: Refrain127
  35. Lesson Twenty-Six: Refrained Imitation133
  36. Module IX
  37. Lesson Twenty-Seven: Oxymoron (trope)137
  38. Lesson Twenty-Eight: Spacial Poetry145
  39. Lesson Twenty-Nine: Spacial Imitation153
  40. Lesson Thirty: Euphemism (trope)155
  41. Appendices
  42. Appendix A: Poetry Anthology161
  43. Appendix B: Glossary169

“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

How it runs

Three lessons a week

“I have found it profitable to cover three lessons per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), each lesson lasting approximately thirty minutes.” Matt Whitling, the Teacher’s Edition

The lesson

Watch the video, then read the new material at the top of the lesson together.

The practice

Work through the example and the activities as a class, or side by side.

The review

After the first few lessons, review questions the student does alone.

The imitation

Scan the module’s poem together, then write one in the same meter.

The exam

One cumulative final exam. Keep every poetry sheet in a folder for it.

The teacher

Matt Whitling

Superintendent of Logos School, Moscow, Idaho

Logos School is one of the first classical Christian schools of its kind in the United States. Matt Whitling wrote the Grammar of Poetry for his own students there; Logos Press first published it in 2000.

At a glance

Grades
6–9+
Length
One semester: 30 lessons, three a week
Video
30 lessons · 6 hours, in the Roman Roads app
Student Text
Canon Press, second edition 2012 · ISBN 978-1-59128-119-1
Teacher’s Edition
ISBN 978-1-59128-120-7
Schools
Group licensing for classes and co-ops
Word Hoard: The Rhetoric of Poetry, by Joffre Swait

After the grammar, the rhetoric

Word Hoard

For grades 11–12 and college: Joffre Swait’s course in reading, hearing, writing and performing poetry, the capstone of the sequence that begins here.

See Word Hoard
Questions

Before you order

Does each student need a Student Text?

Yes. The exercises are in the book, on perforated pages, so each student writes in his own copy. Set the number of students in the box and it adds a Student Text for each.

Do I need the Teacher’s Edition?

It has every answer, the final exam and its key, and Matt Whitling’s notes on grading a poem, which is the part most parents find hardest. A confident teacher could do without it; most families don’t.

How do we watch the video course?

In the Roman Roads app, on a phone, tablet, computer or TV. It opens as soon as you order, and it stays in your account.

Is it right for my older student?

It is written for grades 6–9, but nothing in it is childish: it suits any student, or adult, who can write a good sentence and has never been taught how a poem works. High schoolers can go straight on to Word Hoard afterwards.

Grammar of Poetry

The video course, the Teacher’s Edition and the Student Text: all three for $119.

Choose what you need