The Australian Poetry Collection

Every teacher in Australia should have a collection of Australian poems for classroom use. Here we have the quintessential compendium; Paterson, Lawson and the classic 'How McDougall Topped the Score' and 'Said Hanrahan'. There is a marvellous tradition in Australia of ballad verse which is entertaining and comic. But teachers also cautious about teaching poetry. Each poem comes with a workbook and a PowerPoint. The workbook builds a scaffold enabling students to tackle the poem. There are pre-reading activities to build on what students already know and to form a foundation. The activities while the poem is looked at enable students to engage in a practical way and, where appropriate, they address rhyme, meter, imagery and the concepts associated with poetry. The post-reading activities help place the material into a broader cultural context and may include research. The reading on the PowerPoint is also a useful tool. It gives students perspective and allows them to form an impression from the aural presentation - these poems were meant to be read and performed.

Each poem is in a zip file. The recommendation is that you first copy the file to your desktop or laptop. Open the file with windows explorer. And if asked by PowerPoint, allow for outside content. This is the audio file of the reading.