How To Participate


Download the application.
(Admissions are rolling. The final deadline for electronic and mail submissions is June 1, 2008.)


Tuition
The tuition for the Summer 2008 institute is $275 for the Summer Poetry Institute and includes materials and continental breakfast daily.

On the first day of the institute, teachers receive a canvas tote containing:

• A binder filled with information, and the poems to be presented by the poet-faculty during the week
• Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology, edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002)
• An Invitation to Poetry: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology, edited by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz (W.W. Norton & Co., 2004), includes comprehensive teacher's guide
• A DVD featuring Favorite Poem Project videos
• The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998)

Following the Institute, participants receive:

• A complete, edited set of lessons developed by teacher-groups at the Institute
  
• A “Teachers’ Favorite Poems” anthology compiled from entries collected at the Institute

Institute participants will be awarded 30 Professional Development Points.

The Institute is funded, in part, by grants to the Favorite Poem Project.

Housing
Overnight accommodation for the week (Sunday through Thursday nights) is available on a first come, first served basis at Boston University’s new student village (10 Buick Street, Boston, MA), walking distance from the Institute. The apartment-style residence features four-bedroom suites. All bedrooms are single occupancy. Each suite has two full bathrooms. Bed and bath linens are provided.

Room rates are $56 per person per night for guests of Boston University (a total of $280 for five nights). We will do our best to accommodate suite-mate requests.

Parking
Garage parking is available for commuters at a rate of $6 per day. Overnight parking is available for housed guests at a rate of $10 per day.

Facilities
The Summer Poetry Institute takes place at Boston University’s School of Education, Two Sherborn Street, Boston, MA. Institute participants will have access to a special poetry reading library as well as a computer lab.

The collaboration at the summer institute produced a number of excellent lesson plans. One particularly successful lesson involved creating anthologies and sharing favorite poems. All fifty-eight of my juniors completed this project—unheard of, and fantastic! The at-risk students, the low-functioning, the highly-skilled, the creative, the disenchanted, the normally unmotivated, ALL presented their favorite poems for this project and were delighted to discuss the choices they had made. It was, quite simply, empowering. Rest assured that the “buzz” has started here at Watertown High School.

— Monica Hiller
Watertown High School
Watertown, MA