It's almost uncanny. I've just this moment finished giving a poetry assignment to my first two writing classes this week. Then what do I see when I return home...?

Well I'm not pretending to be an academic or an expert, but the purpose of my activity was to highlight the power of language and communication. I told students to focus on the process, with the objective being that they get a feel for poetry: the rhyme, the vivid description, simile, metaphor and expression of feelings. I wanted them to understand that language learning is not just about grammar exercises and learning vocabulary. I wanted them to see the potential they have to positively influence people in a powerful and dynamic way with words (even written ones).

I used the famous poem written by Robert Burns, titled "A Red Red Rose". I made a big point about despite him dying long ago his words are still alive, inspiring, and encouraging people. Some words are so powerful, that they never die.

I told them that it was their turn. I gave them a copy of the poem in advance together with some brief advice on writing poetry and some questions about the simile, metaphor and "Show not tell" techniques. I also told them to read as much poetry as they could in advance.

At the beginning of the lesson I tried to recite the poem with a lot of feeling (trying, being the operative word) then I tried to 'rap' the poem in a hip hop style, and finished of "singing" it (it was originally a song, apparently). The purpose of the rapping and singing was to try to enliven the exercise, but it's not necessary. My rap is c#!+, and my singing sucks, but that worked in my favour, because that gave the students the confidence to do better than teacher who was making a fool of himself. But at least I was trying!

So after they recited the poem to each other in pairs (I told one of each pair to close their eyes while the other played the part of their lover and recited the love poem with as much feeling as they could), they tried rapping snd singing it too, even tapping their pens on the desk to the beat. They took turns at this and then I swopped the students around. Then, after discussing the poem each student had to write a simile on the board. It was great to see about 25 similes up on the blackboard, all extracted from the imagination of the students.

Finally they all had to write a "reply" to the poem, imagining that it was a love poem from their boyfriend/ girlfriend. I told them to just write the first thing that comes into their heads at first, not worrying about rhyme, grammer, or form etc. Then afterwards they could take out the good bits and write a two verse poem with at least one simile in it. I also encouraged them to try to use a bit of rhyme in places too. When they were finished they could read each other's poems to each other and work out the meaning of each other's similes. You might even be able to get one or two brave souls to come to the front and read their effort to the class. I haven't had a chance to look at the results yet, but what I caught in class as I walked around did not look bad at all.

That's what I did. Hardly academic, but it was effective in getting them interested, excited and enthusiastic. Love is a hot topic especially for college freshman in the bloom of youth! They had a lot of fun with it. It was probably my most successful writing lesson, in that sense.

Whatever you plan to do with poetry, I say go for it, especially if the topic is romantic love. You mentioned teaching adults, so I think there should be no problem. Best of luck!