Revising my poetry devices sheet for the 850th time last night, I realized that they were not using it because they did not see how it could help them. We had just used the Romantic poets to choose common examples of all the traits of poetry for their final exam study sessions over and over again. But no one seems to have put it together. I am embarrassed to say that that I forced myself to relate it to math: "It's an equation, people, all these add up to the prize=meaning and delight."
"I know.....right? Ms Healey, does this worksheet count towards my grade?"
Tonight I am thinking it is all a matter of semantics, of word choice. Let me break it down for you.......
I am confounded by their immediate, powerful response when I read poetry to them and then their complete shutdown when I ask them why they feel so strongly. It sucks the fun and feeling out of it for them, and I do not know why. Should I turn my lesson on its head-make them take control of the inner workings of the poet's mind? And how shall I do that--more to follow.
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6.7.10 Next chapter: we are going to choose poems next year and annotate them in preparation for the Poetry Out Loud recitation project. We will be hyperlinking graphics, video, music, etc,to ID imagery, figures of speech and literary terms to our poems for discussion in class groups. That may 1)provide practice for recognizing devices that provide meaning and 2)preserve delight!
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