I’m not going to lie to any of you. I’m simply not good at poetry. However, I loved that Jago called explicating and making sense of a poem an “interpretative game” (Jago 90). Those two little words opened my eyes to how I want to teach poetry, by making it an interpretative game!
In college classes, I have struggled with poetry. Jago says that students need poetry, so I guess I need to get over my fear! Jago suggests that using familiar song lyrics will help with recognizing poetry and the elements of poetry. I can think of several songs, both pop and rap, that would be great, especially for teaching similes and metaphors!
Figure 5.1 was a great tool. Jago has students reread the poem that is being worked on and “fill in words or phrases that appeal to sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and movement” (90). After working on this for about ten minutes, Jago reread the poem out loud and asked students to contribute their words and phrases. She would ask them what effect the image had on the poem and “little by little, image by image, comprehension of the poem emerges” (90).
I think that teaching poetry is what I need the most help with. The more tools and methods like figure 5.1, the better equipped I will be!
I am not good at poetry either. As a matter of fact I don't really like it :-/. I think poetry is a game that I always lose because it's hard for me to understand some times. lol I agree with you and Jago that using song lyrics and different elements that students relate to (such as texting) can get them involved with poetry and even liking it.
ReplyDeleteI also think poetry is something I need to focus on so I can be a successful teacher in this element of English. I like Jago's tools because they are a starting point for how I can teach poetry.
haha like Amanda I am also not a fan of poetry... it's funny how none of us really like it.
ReplyDeleteI am really hoping that we learn more on how to teach poetry in a classroom. Maybe we can convince Pytash to help us out.