Teaching poetry in the secondary school

Abstract

Poetry needs to be at the heart of work in English because of the quality of language at work on experience that it offers to us. However, the current state of the teaching of poetry in many secondary schools does not show much faith either in the wisdom of poetry or in the powers of self-expression of the pupils. Some English teachers express great unease about teaching poetry and it appears that there are few genuine enthusiasts who read poetry extensively themselves and communicate that enthusiasm to pupils. Poetry is rooted in an oral tradition and poetry in schools can endeavour to restore something of its traditional public and rhetorical voice through performance. The dimension of performing poetry gives to pupils an opportunity to experience the operation of those technical and formal devices which have for so long been the subject of irrelevant classification in the classroom.