Poetry is meant to be spoken and heard, and as teachers we ought to bring the profound, powerful music of words into the classroom - but all too often we are not blessed with the best of reading voices, which is why I'm recommending Poetry Archive: a site of online recordings of poets reading their own works. You can find similar audio clips elsewhere, of course, on sites like BBC, Poets.org and such, but this site has Resources for Teachers we could use.
1. Consult Classroom Materials for lesson plans and ideas. KS3 looks suitable for O Level and KS4 for A Level. The stuff may be abit Anglocentric. I think this lesson on mementos mori could work - it's about parents, mortality, the emo stuff we can all relate to.
2. And listen to this, please! It's a funny poem about 'the psychological state of teachers', so says the poet. Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg. This lesson could work wonderfully with a younger class.
3. Read these tips about creating a listening atmosphere. It can be hard to get students to sit still and listen, but teachers can manipulate the environment and inculcate good listening habits. The 'listening for pleasure' thing makes tremendous sense to me.
4. There is a comprehensive glossary of terms related to poetry. The nice thing about this is that the explanations use real examples of poems, so that you can actually refer to specific examples while trying to explain a concept like 'metaphor' or 'rhyme' to your students.
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Hey Danielle,
ReplyDeletethe possibilities on such interactive classroom teaching of reading poetry can stimualte the students to a perceptible extent. But the idea of 'manipulation' becomes crucial to creating the environment where we as teachers want to channelize students towards a particular 'meaning'. As long as the manipulation is objective, students can be lead to their subjective readings. Thanks for the link!!!
cheers sri
Oh I don't mean manipulate the reading of the poem, I meant manipulate the environment so that students can actually be still and listen.
ReplyDeleteAnd I never realized that channelize was an actual word. Thanks Sri... Haha
Hey Danielle,
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for this! especially that link about the tips on creating a listening atmosphere (I totally agree about how poem is like music and should be heard).
As a side note (more audio poetry), I stumbled upon a poem "Thwok!" by Matt Harvey on the Wimbledon Championships this year (Tennis!!) and always find it a pleasure to listen to. I even imagined a lesson plan out of it haha. You guys should listen to it too!
http://2010.wimbledon.org/en_GB/news/blogs/2010-06-21/201006211277119034156.html :)
Hi Danielle, I thought this was such a cool site! and great ideas!
ReplyDeleteIt really got me thinking about teaching sounds in poetry and creating a "listening atmosphere" for students. For Singapore lit, there's a CD that Rajeev Patke produced for NUS, featuring Singaporean poets reading their own works aloud. I think it's called "Singapore Poetry in English."
Also found this site http://www.michigan.gov/documents/THE_SOUNDS_OF_POETRY_33553_7.pdf which focuses on just sound devices. it's not as comprehensive as the poetry archive one but might be useful for younger students when teaching sound.
hey danielle! yes i absolutely agree. poetry is meant to be read aloud. it is amazing how our perception/meaning of the poem changes when a written text comes to life as it is read out (c.f. The Thought hmmmmm). i think that this would be an excellent way to get students to better appreciate a poem and how lyrical words can be! thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeletecaroline
hi danielle,
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing! like the others, i liked the part about creating a listening atmosphere :)
think we always tend to rush through things as teachers, so it's good to be reminded that slowness sometimes can actually be the way to go to get into the 'zone' haha.
was wondering, perhaps we could do this if we organize poetry recitals for the students? the library would perhaps be the best place to facilitate this idea of listening, but an alternative would also be sitting in the outdoors somewhere in the school compound, if we want to create a different mood :)
Hey all,
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing danielle, I'm afraid I might end up saying the same thing, but I thought I'd share that once when I was in JC, one of my tutors played Sylvia Plath reciting her poem "Daddy" to us and god, I always remember how taunting that poem always sounded after, so yes, I really like the idea of creating a listening environment where poetry is heard and not necessarily just read.
On the same note, I find it a difficult task to teach 'rhythm' sometimes when it comes to poetry, because I can't always get the correct stresses right. I think by having an audio recital of the poem, we can help our students identify the rhythmic pattern more coherently?
thanks for sharing again, guys!
Hi Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI like your idea on how poetry should be read aloud. I've elaborated this point on my own post on how we could use videos to teach 'audible' concepts such as Tone and Mood.
I saw the link on the poem from a teacher's perspective about a typical day in an elementary school classroom. Haha I've had some experience in the primary school and I could totally relate to her; the students are literally everywhere.
:) Kai