Reflections on poetry articles and Blake

Reflections on Poetry

I have often felt a little nervous of poetry, however this course has increased my confidence in tackling poems. In her article, Suzi Clipson-Boyles discusses why so many adults feel poetry to be exclusive. Her reflections voice some of my own personal concerns that public opinion views poetry be too remote and threatening. The reality is that poetry is all around us and that it is accessible. Poetry can clearly be linked to the development of key learning aims and therefore should be used regularly and dynamically in the classroom.
I feel that it is important for teachers to introduce poetry regularly in their lessons so that children are familiar with it, can relate to it and most importantly, can enjoy it.

I felt inspired reading about Sean O’Flynn’s teaching experience with poetry. There are so many different activities, which you can do with poems and because of their lengths they are more accessible to a class of differing abilities. Poetry also covers such a broad spectrum of topics that it can be interwoven into other parts of the curriculum, such as PSHE and the sciences. I was interested to read that Sean does not push serious analysis of all poems read by the class. After developing a rather hostile relationship with Emily Dickinson while at school (mainly to do with over analysis of her poems), I strongly agree that sometimes a poem should be enjoyed just because of the way it sounds.

While working in a year five class in Swindon, I appreciated the use of a poem as a structured settling down technique. A poem does not always have to be used as the main subject of study in a class, but can be incorporated into everyday teaching.

When studying Blake, I was particularly interested in the inseparable link he gave pictures and poetry. For this reason, I would do a picture related activity with his poem, The Tyger. After introducing and reading the poem together and individually, I would ask each member of the class to chose a stanza and ask them to draw a picture to match the words in that stanza. This would give student the chance to examine the language and imagery, which Blake uses so effectively. Once students had completed their pictures (which could be used for displays), we could even do a further activity, matching each stanza to each other’s pictures. I feel that this would enable the students to visualise the words in the poem and bring the poem to life.

i like poetry as a settling down exercise, i think sean briefly mentions that he sometimes just springs a poem on his class - makes the whole debacle less formal i think!