This post is taken from a comment I felt prompted to leave on Moonrat's 'favourite poems' thread a few weeks ago. Forgive me; I'm feeling a little lazy today.
When I was a high school teacher (many years ago now), I always hated the idea that for the kids literature - and especially poetry! - so easily became just "work", just an excuse for exercises and discussions and comprehension questions and essays; it was never allowed to be just reading, just FUN.
So, one of the little tricks I adopted was to fairly regularly (not every class, or even every week, but at least two or three times a term) give out a poem, short or long, at the end of a class, and when the students clamoured to know if there was homework to be set on it, or questions in the end-of-term exam, or analysis in the next class, I'd just say, "No. Nothing. You don't need to answer any questions on it. You don't need to bring to class next time. I don't even insist that you read it. I'll never mention it again. I just hope that you will keep it. And that you might choose to read it sometime. And that you might one day come to understand and enjoy it. And if you'd like to ask me anything about it in private, that's fine; but, really, we are never going to discuss it in class. Never. It's just a bit of fun."
It took some of the kids an awfully long time to get used to the idea. And I'm not sure if it really did any good. One can but hope....
2 comments:
im really grateful for poetry teachers exposed me to; otherwise, i would be exposed to no poetry at all, since i dont seek it out. and i do like almost everything i've heard (having no sense of discrimination, alas).
I am very sceptical of the idea of "teaching" poetry.
I think the best teachers can do in most subjects - and just about all they can do in literature - is to communicate their own passion.
You can't tell kids that they ought to be excited about something; you can't even really show them, most of the time, why they ought to be excited by something; all you can do is show them that it is possible to be excited by something - and hope that they may be inspired to go in search of that excitement themselves.
Post a Comment