Encourage Students to Participate in the Dear Poet project for National Poetry Month

The Academy of American Poets is inviting students in grades five through twelve to be a part of Dear Poet for National Poetry Month. To participate, students watch a series of exclusive videos that feature award-winning poets, members of the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors, sharing their poems. They then write a letter responding to one of the poems. Students who send their letters to the Academy of American Poets by April 30, 2015, (Poem in Your Pocket Day) have a chance to receive a reply from the poet and to have their letter featured on the Poets.org.

Participating Chancellors include Toi Derricotte, Marilyn Hacker, Juan Felipe Herrera, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Naomi Shihab Nye, Arthur Sze, and C. D. Wright.

For teachers interested in offering the project as a classroom activity, we've developed a free Common Core-aligned Dear Poet lesson plan.