Teaching poetry

Bobtheman

I teach in a Deis school. Any advice on teaching a poem to ordinary level English? Lc ?

EAD

Bobtheman wrote: »

I teach in a Deis school. Any advice on teaching a poem to ordinary level English? Lc ?

Can depend on the poem. Just finished Boland. Used sets of images that they had to cut out and order by linking with lines from the poems.
Often print out a sample answer/notes where the sentences are in the wrong order and they have to correctly restructure them (with an element of competition).
If the poem connects with a shape you could draw the shape and get them to shape important lines inside the image where the larger quotations are more important.
And they love nothing more than correcting/redrafting a badly written answer that you've created esp. if you poke fun at yourself!

Bobtheman

EAD wrote: »

Can depend on the poem. Just finished Boland. Used sets of images that they had to cut out and order by linking with lines from the poems.
Often print out a sample answer/notes where the sentences are in the wrong order and they have to correctly restructure them (with an element of competition).
If the poem connects with a shape you could draw the shape and get them to shape important lines inside the image where the larger quotations are more important.
And they love nothing more than correcting/redrafting a badly written answer that you've created esp. if you poke fun at yourself!

This is for ordinary level ?

petejmk

Bobtheman wrote: »

I teach in a Deis school. Any advice on teaching a poem to ordinary level English? Lc ?

In a DEIS school too. I've used this with classes when we look at a poem for the first time to get them thinking about it.

It's taken from Benton & Fox 'Teaching Literature: 9 to 14'. Published in 1987 but there's some great ideas in it.

I read the poem aloud three times for them. After each reading they have a short, basic task to perform. These tasks are explained at the beginning.

After the first reading (they also have a copy of the poem) they have to jot down something they notice about the poem/something that stands out. The quality of the responses varies greatly as you can imagine. All of these go up on the board and discussed.

For the second reading students have to write down two questions they have about the poem. All of these also go up on the board and discussed.

For the third reading students are given a pencil and a piece of scrap paper on which to sketch an image related to the poem. The idea here is to push them to sketch an image they think no one else in the class will have. Some will give out and complain that they can't draw but just tell them you're not expecting a work of art and they'll get on with it. These are then discussed in turn with students asked to refer to the part of the poem captured by their sketch.

They're all simple tasks that the whole class can complete and can prompt some lively discussions. Hope it helps!

EAD

Bobtheman wrote: »

This is for ordinary level ?

Yup