Have you ever wondered how to teach poetry effectively? You’re not alone. There are hundreds of ways that you can teach poetry which means it can be challenging to choose. As a twenty-five-year veteran AP Literature and Composition teacher, I’ve taught my fair share of poems. Let me take you through the specific steps I took in order to teach poetry effectively.
Many books have been written on how to understand and interpret poetry, a fact that can be overwhelming for those who believe that poetry is too difficult for them. But for someone like me who loves the challenge of digging into all that a poem has to offer, my goal has always been to make poetry, even difficult poetry, accessible to all students.
It is important to get a feeling about the poem before you start stripping it down to form and function. It has been said that a poem has many levels of meaning. And often this cannot be ascertained on an initial read.
First, I always recommend that a poem be read aloud. And several times. At least three times before annotating text. Ask yourself, does the sound of the language add anything of importance to the poem’s message or effect?
For example, what does the poem seem to convey? How does it make you feel?
After you have read the poem several times, it is time to interpret. At this point, some might want to paraphrase the poem. However, I often find paraphrasing tedious and unnecessary, especially for high school students, but for elementary or middle school students, this may be very beneficial.
State the basic idea of the poem. The title will usually give you a good clue about the meaning of a poem. Often, the poetic purpose is reiterated in the first and last stanzas. So, reread these stanzas and look for context clues.
How successfully is the poem’s meaning communicated? It is important to have students ask questions about the poem: what, where, how, why?
Explain as fully as you can the poet’s point of view and how ideas are linked and developed within the poem? Try to characterize the speaker as fully as you can.
What elements of figurative language (i.e. metaphors, similes, personification, etc.) are being used, and for what purpose?
Are there comparisons and contrasts within the poem? Consider imagery and possible symbols. Are there any words that you do not know? Does defining these words add to the poem’s meaning?
What effect is the poet striving for? Is the tone and mood of the poem clear? Are there any references or allusions? Pick out words and phrases the poetuses to characterize elements within the poem. Does this poem remind you of any other poem?
Now, let’s look at the form. Are there stanzas? How many lines per stanza? Is there a set meter and rhythm? How does punctuation affect the poem? Is there a rhyme scheme? Is it a narrative poem? Is it a traditional form?
Poetry means far more than it says. And that creates a problem for our students who learn to dislike poetry because it is often presented as an analytical problem and they are given an ever-changing, ambiguous formula to work with.
Analysis of a poem’s mechanics is significant only as a means of gaining full value and pleasure from the poem. Exploring the craft of writing and the poetic process can be fun and rewarding for our students.
8 Tips for Teaching Poems Effectively:
1 Select poetry with poems that students can relate to; those with real-world applications.
2 Usually, the teacher is the best reader in the room. Read a poem aloud to help students get an overall feeling for the language, rhythm, meter, and message of the poem.
3 Select several poems that connect to a common theme or a common piece of literature (like a novel or a play).
4 Have students research poems online and choose poems to analyze. Let students chose poems that speak to them. This can be very powerful.
5 Pair-and-Share, poetry circles, and poetry corners are a great way to use cooperative, differentiated learning.
6 Gallery walk-throughs are a great way to have students present their research on poets or poems, with creative, visual elements like crafted collages or even dioramas.
7 Have students write poems. Elementary students can create poems like acrostic poems, haikus, or limericks. Whereas middle and high school students can craft more complex poetic forms like sonnets, villanelles, and free or blank verse poems.
8 When annotating poetry, a teacher must model poetry annotations for students. Even with my AP12 students, I model annotating poetry for several weeks before students begin annotating poems on their own.
Let’s get real. Annotating is a process. And it’s not a fast one. It’s a process that helps students extend their understanding of a text. And that takes time. The value of annotating is to reach a deeper understanding of what has been read. The great thing about poems is that they are short, so they can generally be annotated quickly.
Literary devices are techniques poets use to improve their work.
They can hint at themes, convey the meaning of the poem, or serve a wide variety of other functions. To annotate poems properly, you need to be able to recognize literary devices.
Numerous literary devices may be found in any given poem, such as: allegory, alliteration, allusion, anaphora, apostrophe, assonance, blank verse, cacophony, caesura, consonance, enjambment, hyperbole, juxtaposition, imagery, irony, metaphor, meter, metonym, mood, ode, personification, pun, repetition, rhetorical question, rhyme, rhythm, simile, sonnet, synecdoche, symbolism, tone, and understatement.
The world of poetry is vast and varied.
Aside from identifying literary devices, students also need to be able to determine the form of the poem. Students will need a quick introduction to some of the most common types of poetic forms. These may include sonnet, haiku, villanelle, acrostic, elegy, epic, descriptive, concrete, or visual, ekphrastic, epigram, limerick, ballad, epitaph, Tanka, cinquain, ode, free verse, blank verse, narrative, and lyric.
Let’s face it. There are many different approaches to examining poetry, and often these approaches do not require an exhaustive analysis of a poem. Annotating poetry is not about finding every single literary device and nuance of the poetic meter; but rather, it is about expanding an initial reading and developing a deeper appreciation for the craft of poetic writing.
If you’re looking for more inspiration for teaching poetry, check out 40 Poetry Writing Prompts. I’d love to see your students’ poems, so have them use #teachingwithpoetry to share their poetry with me @teachingwithpoetry!
