Online Poetry Classroom is a great resource for teaching poetry.

This page offers 341 poems that teachers or others have recommended. At a quick perusal, I would say that half are more recent and half are classic. Some of the classics are clearly Christian. That’s good since many education sites do not include such literature as recommended.

Not all the poems are happy. “Richard Cory” is about a rich guy who goes home and shoots himself in the head. And many, if not most, Sylvia Plath poems are depressing. However, most of the classic ones are quite good. Just preview before you assign.

The most popular authors are Robert Frost and Langston Hughes.

Many of the classic poems are available from the site, which is good if you don’t have anthologies sitting on your shelf at home.

This page has tips on teaching poetry. Some of the ideas under Preparation won’t work for a homeschooler, but the ideas overall are useful and very encouraging. If you wanted to teach poetry, but were always afraid, this is a good resource.

There is also a collection of lesson plans created and used by secondary teachers. These lesson plans range from a single lesson on “Committed to Memory,” which includes a long list of possible poems to memorize, to “Women in Poetry,” which has a total of 33 lessons.

A Resource Center which includes quick links that cover everything from state laws on education to writers in schools programs to curricula.

Overall, I found this site to have a lot of good information, even for a seasoned teacher like myself. But I also thought it would be very helpful for beginning teachers, even if they’re beginning to teach their own children poetry at home. (“Committed to Memory” would be very good for that.)