Teacher Of Poetry Research Articles

“Taking off the shackles”: the joy, freedom and gravitational pull of low-stakes curriculum innovation within a high-stakes assessment framework

ABSTRACT High-stakes assessments continue to command a directing influence on education systems globally. While there is much research detailing the challenges associated with this curricular framework, there is little evidence of a move away from high-stakes assessment frameworks to date. Accordingly, attention is being drawn to spaces and opportunities where meaningful teaching and learning experiences may be fostered within high-stakes systems. This paper explores the case of the Transition Year Programme in Ireland through the lens of the poetry classroom as a case study of striking counter-cultural curriculum innovation set within a high-stakes assessment educational framework. Drawing on the perspectives of poetry teachers, the findings of the study highlight the joy, freedom and gravitational pull experienced by practitioners teaching on this programme. Curriculum and policy-based considerations supporting both the integration of counter-cultural educational innovations across high-stakes educational systems and within high-stakes educational programmes are advanced arising from the findings of this study.

“Poetry is on its way back up”: a spoken word performer’s contribution to young people’s engagement with poetry

ABSTRACT The presence of spoken word poets at school can prove to be engaging for young people, especially if used to complement the work conducted by enthusiastic teachers of poetry. By means of an evaluation of a spoken word residency at an Australian high school, this article discusses some of the opportunities and challenges associated with the attempt to engage young people with the genre. The case study’s research data was collected by means of observation of the residency and semi-structured interviews with the poet leading it and the teacher who organized it. In the article it is argued that while students are encouraged to develop their conceptions of poetry and perceive it as engaging, it is important to democratize participation in spoken word activities and enhance teachers’ own engagement.

Silence in the Classroom: Reflections on Teaching Poetry in UK Secondary Schools and Universities

Abstract This extended contribution to English’s forum on teaching poetry seeks to shift discussion away from the capabilities, expectations, and motivations of students in university poetry seminars and invite university educators to reflect on how aspects of their practice consciously and unconsciously effect how poetry is understood by new generations. The article recounts how the author’s understanding of silence in poetry classrooms in schools and universities has developed over time. In doing so, it models processes of reflective practice and reflexivity that might be less familiar to university teaching colleagues than it is to those who have undertaken training to teach in schools. The article argues that engaging with processes of reflective practice not only stands to benefit individual poetry teachers and their students, but can also empower us to think more critically and collectively about the purposes we serve and the principles that underpin our work as educators in the discipline of English.

Learning to Teach by Practice: Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences of Using Poetry Memorization, Dramatization and Recitation Pedagogy

In Uganda, poetry is a key genre in the Literature in English curriculum at the secondary and higher institutions of teacher education. However, many teachers, especially the novices, struggle with the teaching of poetry in secondary schools in Uganda. Current approaches to teaching support learner-centered pedagogy where learners are facilitated to fully participate in scaffolding their own interpretations of the subject content. Individual in-class poetry recitation is one such activity used to teach, and taught to, pre-service teachers of poetry because it promotes their participation and their general attitude towards poetry. In this paper, we present findings from a study about Makerere University pre-service teachers’ experiences of using individual in-class poetry recitations as a learner-centered strategy for teaching poetry. The research was carried out amongst one cohort of finalist teacher trainees of English and Literature using lecture observation, interviews and open-ended questionnaire research methods. A thematic analysis of the data revealed three themes that summarize their experiences with memorization, recitation and dramatization of poetry: recitation: facing the class; and pedagogical reflections. As we present these themes, we also draw some pedagogical implications for poetry classes from the actual recitation experiences of teacher trainees who participated in this study.

The Teacher-Traveller

Hryhoriy Skovoroda is eminent Ukrainian teacher-humanist, philosopher, poet, painter and musician. He was born on December 3, 1722 in Poltava province in a Cossack family. Skovoroda graduated from Kyiv-Mohyla Academia. He worked as a teacher of poetry in Pereyaslav Seminary and Kharkiv Collegium. Hryhoriy Skovoroda attempted humanize and democratize authoritarian education system. But him was not allowed to do it. Skovoroda was dismissed. He decides go to the poor people and teach them. Skovoroda taught to be free and to put freedom above power and money. Teacher educated miserable children in goodness and beauty. Skovoroda read poetry for pupils. Сhildren еspecially liked Hryhoriy Skovoroda’s fables. Poet ridiculed vices of society and sang virtues of personality. Skovoroda for children played on pipe and bandura and violin. He sang Ukrainian folk songs about national heroes. Skovoroda opened for poor children a world of knowledge. Pupils leaned seven free arts: music, rhetoric, astronomy, grammar, arithmetic, geometry and dialectics. Skovoroda aspired to educate all-round personalities. Especially much attention spared for creative development of child. Pupils invented fairy-tales, drew, leaned to play on music instruments.
 The fame about disinterested teacher fast spread throughout Ukraine and beyond. Wherever Hryhoriy Skovoroda went, poor people met him with bread and salt. Не became popular teacher and philosopher. Skovoroda gave for miserable people all his heart and soul. He aspired to give education for all poor people.
 Hryhoriy Skovoroda reserved many disciples, which became famous personality and continued affair of your teacher. They opened new schools and universities, where taught philosophy of kindness. Hryhoriy Skovoroda is author of poetic and philosophical works. Many of his works became folk works. Schools and universities bear the name of the Ukrainian philosopher and teacher.

Forms of Poetic Attention

Forms of Poetic Attention

"A Pair of Ragged Claws": Poetry and Pedagogy in Prison

Alex Tretbar, a Wichitan and graduate of the University of Kansas, reflects on his incarceration in Oregon and the role of literature in helping him and others who live in prison make sense of their experience. During his imprisonment, Tretbar acquired a job as a GED tutor and eventually took on a role as leader of a poetry and fiction study group. He shares experiences common to teachers of poetry both in and out of prison and demonstrates the power of poetry to help people learn about language, connect with each other, and appreciate how poetry can teach us about ourselves. Moreover, poetry and pedagogy have their own unique relevance in prison. Tretbar forms several important connections with other imprisoned men through their poetry group and explores how the power of poetry can help teachers and students confront the personal, political, and artistic issues we all face. Eventually, Tretbar’s poetry group is shut down by a prison-wide COVID-19 lockdown just as its members were receiving instruction from visiting poets and educators. Steven Maack, one of Tretbar’s high school English teachers, introduces Tretbar’s reflection and provides an update in an afterword.

Professional contraction and the growth of teacher confidence. Experiences in the teaching of poetry from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT A rising crisis of confidence has been noted amongst teachers of poetry in recent years. Amplified by external factors such as high-stakes testing regimes, performance indicators, standardisation and accountability measures, teachers are increasingly challenged to provide immersive, imaginative and engaging encounters with poetry while developing and maintaining their sense of professional confidence. Drawing on data gleaned from 84 English teachers across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, this research explores teachers’ sense of confidence in the teaching of post-16 poetry. The findings of this research indicate a strikingly high level of reported confidence amongst post-16 poetry teachers juxtaposed with low levels of informal poetry engagement, low levels of poetry-related in-service attendance and a reduced commitment to pedagogical innovation. The research points towards the emergence of a new professionalism in which teacher confidence is reinforced through professional contraction and compliance with practices of pedagogical standardisation.

Sigmund von Birken, der Literaturbetrieb, Netzwerke und Werkpolitik

Abstract Sigmund von Birken belongs to the »Trio of poets from Nürnberg«, together with Georg Philipp Harsdörffer and Johann Klaj whose posthumous fame is mainly due to their pastoral poetry with fullsounding verses in praise of peace and love. Birken started his career with an enormous upshot as organizer of multi-media spectacles during the peace ceremony in Nürnberg in 1650. Apart from his hymns and pastoral love poems, Birken’s poetry does not belong to the canon of early modern literature in Germany. If he had lived longer, he would probably have edited later all those poems which he had written on demand for special occasions and immediately published as separate brochures or leaflets in at least four huge volumes. He would have properly arranged love poems, odes in praise of friendship, poems dedicated to noblemen and civilians, hymns and secular songs, starting like his famous predecessors with his Latin verses. This ambitious publication project is outlined in his manuscript collections, but was not realized during Birken’s lifetime. To correct for this oversight, the commented edition of Birken’s complete poetic manuscripts, which was recently finished by Hartmut Laufhütte, gives a broad impression of his talents as a playful virtuoso in all kinds of genres, teacher of poetry, advisor, ›ghostwriter‹ and promotor of young poets, male and female alike. His diaries and correspondence account for his enormous productivity and versatility, thus enabling modern readers to watch him during the creative procedure more closely than any other German poet of his time. The edition of Birken’s manuscripts is on the same scale as a few other recently completed long term editions of early modern German ego-documents and poetry and sets high standards for further editions.

Symbolic Cognition in Poetic Experience: Re-representing the Paraphrase Paradox

Abstract This article considers an apparent tension between, on the one hand, a widespread belief among literature teachers that the appreciation of a poem involves an experience of form-content inseparability and, on the other hand, these same teachers’ use of paraphrase to encourage appreciation. Using Terrence Deacon’s model of art experience, I argue that the tensions of this ‘paraphrase paradox’ mirror tensions inherent in poetic experience. Section II draws upon work by Rafe McGregor, Peter Lamarque, and Peter Kivy to frame an approach to the form-content distinction, and to offer a brief overview of the paraphrase paradox. Sections III-IV summarize Deacon’s model of aesthetic experience, and argue that this model implies that poetic experience both triggers an impulse towards paraphrase, and frustrates this impulse. Section V looks at implications for the poetry teacher’s attempts to navigate the paraphrase paradox. Section VI tests these implications through an analysis of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Faith Healing’.

Don’t Fear Poetry! Secondary Teachers’ Key Strategies for Engaging Pupils With Poetic Texts

ABSTRACT Poetry is a key element of many literature curricula but poetry teaching is something with which many teachers struggle. Research indicates that teachers lack experience of poetry as well as subject knowledge and that current high-stakes testing poses challenges. While previous research has investigated teachers’ experiences through large quantitative studies, this study focuses on what teachers who are keen readers of poetry regard as key elements of pedagogy. The material comprises 15 interviews with secondary school teachers of Swedish. A thematic analysis identified four themes: drawing on personal engagement, discussing pupils’ conceptions from the outset, creating a safe classroom atmosphere, and scaffolding pupils’ interpretations. The study highlights the centrality of the aesthetic experience and suggests that attention should be paid within research regarding how aesthetic content should be taught and that teacher educators should scaffold pre-service teachers’ individual exploration of poetry to help them become confident teachers of poetry.

The Use of Figurative Languages on the Students' Poetry Semester V at FKIP Universitas HKBP Nommensen

<p>This research discusses The Use of Figurative Languages on the Students’ Poetry Semester V at FKIP Universitas HKBP Nommensen. The problems of this research are (1) what types of figurative language used on the students’ poetry semester V at FKIP Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan? (2) what figurative language is dominantly used on the students’ poetry semester V at FKIP Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan? The objectives of this research are to find out types of figurative language used on the students’ poetry semester V at FKIP Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan and to figure out and analyze what figurative language is dominantly used on the students’ poetry semester V at FKIP Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan?To find out the answer of the problem in this research, the writer uses the related theories; they are Quinn (1982), McDonough and Shaw (1993), Gluckberg (2001), Alm-Arvius (2003), Lazar (2003), Ratumanan and Laurens (2003), Brown (2004), Harmer (2004), Heller (2006), Picken (2007), Keraf (2009), Creswell (2009), Arikunto (2010), Arnold and Von Hollander (2011), Dalman (2012), Dancygier and Sweetser (2014). This research is conducted with descriptive qualitative research where the subject and object is taken from the students’ poetry. The writer gets the data by observation and documenting. After the data had been collected, the writer finds out three types of figurative language on the students’ poetry: symbol, metaphors and personifications. In teaching poetry, every teacher needs to call upon a number of techniques and methods. If teachers of poetry disagree on the methods of teaching a certain poet, they must agree on goals: To put their students in touch with the mind of that poet. No doubt, it is known for every one that good poetry lessons occur in classrooms where young people are guided by responsive teachers who implement as well as they plan.</p><strong>Keywords: </strong>Figurative language, poetry, language

Indonesian Senior High School student’s perspective of the poetry teacher’s role in authentic assessment of poetry writing

ABSTRACTCompetency of poetry writing assessment is one of the significant keys that must be owned by teacher, especially the teacher with poet competency. This research analyzed the poetry teacher’s role in authentic assessment of poetry writing based on Indonesian Senior High School students’ perspective. The data were obtained from Senior High School students of language major in poetry writing class. The characteristics of the poetry teacher were gained based on the teacher’s competency in publishing a national scale-poetry book. This work reveals that according to the student’s perspective, poetry teachers did not involve the students in poetry writing assessment inhibited the authentic assessment of poetry writing. Therefore, the instrument of objective assessment of poetry writing could minimize the student assessment mistake so that the poetry teachers become facilitators as well as mentors in authentic assessment collaboratively undertaken with students.

Beyond Broudy’s Triad—Infusing University Students with the Love of Poetry

In spite of the diverse schools of thought providing guidance for poetry teachers—such as the didactic, heuristic, or phyletic approaches—this myriad of teaching modes has failed to generate adequate student appreciation for poetry courses. The reason for this is teachers’ tendency to cling to the idea that one must choose a particular approach and find out the correct or fixed meaning. This study includes a recommendation for a major shift in teaching poetry that transforms each class session into a new learning rather than a teaching experience—one in which the instructor’s role is to inspire a passion and love for poetry in ESL learners. This teaching-learning style requires that teachers change from being omniscient sages to participants, co-explorers, and learners—a move from teaching methods to learning styles and a shift from encouraging the love of teachers to inspiring the love of poetry in university students.

Jonathan Culler. Theory of the Lyric. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. 391pp.

Jonathan Culler. <i>Theory of the Lyric</i>. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. 391pp.

Becoming Poetry Teachers: Studying Poems Through Choral Reading

The poet, Seamus Heaney, argues that transformations for both teachers and students may be engendered through recognising the connections and distinctions between the language of poetry and the language of everyday life. This article explores some of the ways in which choral reading of poetry, using multiple voices like musical instruments, may change student teachers’ perceptions of poetry. Five small groups of Secondary English student teachers on an initial teacher education Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course constructed choral readings, each group working with a different poem. During the session, they wrote journal entries about how creating the readings and listening to other people led them to think differently about studying poetry with students in the classroom as future secondary English teachers. Several months later, a small voluntary group met to recollect the session and consider more critically the potential of choral reading as one possible approach to teaching poetry.

Colluding in the ‘torture’ of poetry: Shared beliefs and assessment

Assessment is most often held responsible for teachers' and students' mechanical approach to poetry in class. This article shows how examination pressure leads a group of poetry teachers and A Level English students at a post‐16 college in Malta to perpetuate an approach to poetry that is characterised by an emphasis on finding hidden meaning. However, it is also argued that to blame only assessment for this approach is to run the risk of ignoring the shared beliefs that teachers and students have about poetry.

A joyous lifeline in a target-driven job: teachers’ metaphors of teaching poetry writing

Drawing on Vygotsky’s notion, developed by Bruner, of learners growing into ‘the intellectual life of those around them’, this paper reports on a small-scale questionnaire survey of teachers’ thinking about poetry writing and their instructional practices of teaching it. Thirty-three teachers, with a range of teaching experience and service, took part in the study. This paper presents, analyses and evaluates the central metaphor of ‘freedom’ used by teachers. This presents poetry writing instruction in four contrasting ways: as freedom to explore personal creativity; as a site of integrated thinking; as a rejection of ‘formulaic writing’; and as freedom from curricular ‘directives’. The paper argues that these metaphors indicate considerable personal investment by teachers of poetry and that they consider the teaching of poetry writing to have impact as much on themselves as on pupils.

ACTIVE READING IN TEACHING POETRY IN EFL CLASS

Poetry at large does not have the liberty of prose in describing experience to its fullest details. Its nature is to compress experience into compact and condensed language thus reading poetry for the uninitiated can be very challenging. For students of EFL, reading poetry in English can be a very demanding task because they have to get through double barriers, namely: the nature of poetry and English, the language it is written in, to enjoy the experience it tries to convey. Teachers of poetry are also riddled with dillemma as to make their students understand the text they are teaching. The practice of authoritatively telling students what it means will turn poetry class into a uninspiring session where students will listen to another dreary sermon each time they attend the class and leave them marvelling whether the teacher’s explanation is within their reach or beyond them. Moreoever, it will do them injustice because this practive will cripple them of the ability in discovering the meaning of the text they are reading on their own. For this reason, this paper proposes active reading as a strategy to help both teachers and students to prevail over challenges posed by poetry in English. Active reading involves a lot of annotating task which will help students to crack open the compact language of poetry and extend it to the extent of students discovering that poetry is just another way to communicate experience through language. Key words: teaching poetry, EFL.

‘What rough beast?’ Conceptualising the poetry teacher in Ireland through the eyes of the pupil

Pupils have a significant contribution to make in the construction of knowledge about teaching and learning in schools. Therefore, consultation with pupils should play a significant role in the pursuit of pedagogical advancement. This study explores pupils' conceptions of effective poetry teachers at Leaving Certificate level in Ireland. Taking a phenomenographic approach, this study draws on interviews conducted with 23 senior cycle pupils. Set against a transcontextual backdrop of pupil apathy and disengagement in the poetry classroom, this study identifies five significant categories of learning for pre-service teachers aiming to optimise student engagement within the poetry classroom. The imperative for action, specifically at pre-service level, is outlined and recommendations in the pursuit of pedagogical advancement in the poetry classroom are proposed.