John S. O'Connor offers exciting new approaches to teaching poetry in middle school and high school classrooms with more than 25 high-interest activities designed to sharpen students' writing and self-understanding and heighten their awareness of the world around them. In the process, he demystifies poetry for teachers and students by using students' own life experiences as the basis for all student writing. The activities can constitute an entire course in poetry writing or work as individual lessons, depending on the teacher's classroom goals. Early lessons start out with simple lists and wordplay; later lessons involve more complicated forms and subjects. Throughout the book, however, the emphasis is on fun and making sure that every student succeeds. In all, O'Connor provides an impressive number of poetry models--more than 30 professional models and more than 80 models from students in his own classroom. Students will also learn how to dramatize poems, creating special effects in performance, both in the classroom and beyond the walls of the school. "Wordplaygrounds" shows how students can move beyond the traditional boundaries of English curricula, interpreting poetry through a variety of media, including music, art, and dance--without special talent and training in these areas. This book contains the following chapters: (1) Everyday Poets; (2) Preparing the Palette; (3) Same Pond, New Splash: Writing Modern English Haiku; (4) Songs of Ourselves; (5) Presences and Absences; (6) Avenues to the Past; (7) Sounds, Speeds, and Sliding Doors; (8) Reading Ourselves away from Ourselves; (9) Writing Lives; (10) Performance Tools: Punching, Pausing, Painting; (11) Performance: Stage Persona; and (12) Performance: Beyond the Boundaries. A list of works cited and information about the author conclude the book.