READING LITERARY WORKS

PROCEDURE IN TEACHING POETRY

More and more people find poetry difficult not only to write, but also to understand. First of all, we are supposed to know that poetry is meant to be read, heard, and enjoyed, rather than to be studied. Poetry is viewed as a tacky and unnecessary form of communication created by few and enjoyed by fewer. But what really makes poetry difficult for many people to enjoy and understand. People think poetry difficult because the words themselves carried weight heavy enough to contain meanings they themselves could not otherwise express, thus, both teachers and students see no value of doing with it.

However, it is not a difficult as people think as most of us have been doing the poetry through singing; we use the same words as used in the poetry. Poetry should be considered as an enjoyable task. Let us discuss and see how easy it is.

Pre – Reading

A teacher is supposed to attract the students’ interests to make the lesson impressive. So begin with a short and attractive Warm up before starting the lesson. It is very helpful as most of the students will be impressed on what you are going to teach.  For example if you teach the poem “Building the Nation” You can  write the words on the board using large letters and ask the students what they know about the concept regarded. Write what they mention on the board.

Talk about poetry in a simple way remove barriers such as rhyme, meter, punctuation, etc. These obstacles only reinforce students fear that poetry is difficult.

While – Reading

You are supposed to have a poem that you must be dealing with. Group the students before starting to read. If possible make some copies for your students. You will read the poem while the students listening attentively. Read the poem again to make it clear and enjoyable to the students. Make sure all students listen carefully to the demonstration reading and you should pronounce well all words including the stressed words, pauses and tones. It is advisable to set the questions while reading to make them attentive.  The questions can be as follows;

1. What is the poem about?
2. Who speaks in the poem?
3. What the possible themes of the poem?
4. Mention and briefly explain figures of speech

Provide opportunities for them to read aloud to their partners and discuss their experiences on the given poem.

You can choose some of these activities to make your lesson active, but this depends on the nature of your students, environment and available resources.

Activity I:        After reading the examples of free verse poems, allow students to compare and contrast them and discuss what makes free verse poems different.  Discuss what makes them poems and not stories? Allow students to work in partners or small groups to use one of the three poems as a model to write a free verse poem about their experience.  Share poems with the class.

Activity II:        Use any poem from the recommended books which contain rhythm, rhyme, lines, stanzas, and a rhyme scheme to identify them.    Allow students to search for more poems in poetry books and answer the same questions of the poem they find and share it with the class, in a small group or with a partner.

Activity III:       A teacher can form another active reading task by asking students to choose a metaphor or simile from a poem by reciting the verses with similes, metaphor, personification, alliteration or other figures of speech and interpret them. Working in a particular form often reveals its complexities and beauty more effectively than just talking about it. Mind you it is not very necessary to make students memorize terms as: alliteration, simile, assonance, metaphor, personification, etc. Use your imagination; there are simpler ways to explain these terms. For Example: simile (comparing using like or as) personification (giving objects human qualities) 

Activity IV:       Ask students to respond to the words they hear and read in poems, and to picture the images that the words create. One way to introduce how description is used in poetry to stir up images is to ask them to draw what they think the poem describes. Then have them circle the words that help to stir up the images that they draw. Discuss how the circled words create the images and how students can use the technique in their own writing.

Post – Reading

After doing while reading activities, you are supposed to ask your students write about the poem using their own words.

Reflection

One way for a teacher to gain an understanding of students’ attitudes towards poetry is to ask them to keep a file that contains different poems that they can read as much as needed.

As a teacher, make sure that your students become ‘active readers’ and fond of poetry by experimenting with the forms they are studying. One example would be an assignment where you will ask your students to compose a sonnet or any other kind of poem of their selection.  This type of assignment works well as a formative task, thus freeing student and teacher at the same time.

Summary

Once students gain the confidence in writing their own poems, the teacher can introduce other activities on poems into the classroom. Students will have enough experience to make them feel like poets and feel close to poetry; this should help them in reading and understanding what other poets have written.

The purpose of teaching poetry to students is to experience what so many other people have found in poetry, not just so you will know more, or understand more, but so you will enjoy more. Surely, one of the major purposes of education is to increase people’s capacity to enjoy life.