Poetry has long been neglected in the classroom especially concerned with language education. This study, based on the experience of involving students in the communicative uses of poetry, investigates the possibility of building an integrated approach model of poetry in the classroom. As a way of exploring the educational values of engaging English poetry in English language pedagogy, this paper rethinks the process of reading poetry in the classroom based on Whole Language Theory. In the process, the semantic mapping technique is experimented and presented as an effective way of promoting more dynamic interactions among the text, learners, and language skills. For an integrated approach model of English Poetry through semantic mapping, Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself” is taken as a sample poem. Through the analysis of the class and the feedback from students, this paper draws the conclusion that reading a poem for English education can be both a meaningful activity and an effective teaching strategy involving students in experiencing four skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) of language in an integrated manner. (Konyang UniversityㆍInha University)