Chapter 1. Appreciating the beauty of second language poetry writing

This chapter presents a very personal view of a pedagogical approach to the second language writing classroom. This approach places human expression at its center, sees L2 writing pedagogy as involving the extension of expressive abilities, utilizes the genre of poetry and values the aesthetic qualities of L2 poetry writing. The chapter explains the ways poetry can be employed to promote both affective expression and linguistic expansion. Modeling second language writing as linguistically sophisticated and polysemantic, imagistic and narrative-based, autobiographical and an aesthetically pleasing reading experience, this chapter showcases a pedagogy that is based in a constructivist, humanistic gambit toward emancipating L2 language learners.