Drafting and Assessing Poetry offers a range of teaching strategies for developing students' poetry writing skills, and guidance about assessment approaches. Critical commentaries combine with illustrations of successful classroom practice to consider this essential but under-explored aspect of English teaching. Based in theory but with a practical dimension, the book engages readers in current critical debates about poetry teaching and its place in an assessment driven curriculum. Drafting and Assessing Poetry is for reflective practitioners, including trainee teachers, who want to develop there understanding of poetry teaching and to gain insights, which will inform classroom practice. It will also be useful for literacy co-ordinators, teacher educators and other advisory staff in the field of English teaching.