The article describes how the author created the curriculum for an advanced class of adult students at an Intensive English Program (IEP), and how she piloted the course during an 8-week summer program. The level of this class of 20 students from 9 different countries was distinctly above the usual 7 levels practiced at the IEP. Thus, there was no guidance, no texts, and no curriculum set for the course. Choosing the thematic approach suggested by Stoller and Grabe (1997), and settling on the theme of children and parents as presented in literature, the writer takes us through ways of creating background knowledge, keeping momentum, integrating all 4 skills, and approaching language learning through individual and interactive strategies.

Claiming that poetry is essentially an oral art and thus eminently suitable as discourse for language teaching and learning, the author guides readers through stepby-step strategies in how to make the pictures of poetry visible and the sounds of poetry audible for language-learning students. Using the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author presents strategies that allow us to see and understand the people, the place, and the drama felt throughout the poem. She makes clear that these strategies can be used with most poems. She chooses objects and moments from students’ everyday experiences to demonstrate each technique, and she explains how such ordinary objects and events can bring out the essence of each poem. These techniques also offer opportunities for the practice of all language skills, and they promote student group and pair work for vocabulary recycling and practice of structure as they enjoy literary content.