(Pytash) How Poems Work

 

“I begin the study of poetry with the assumption that students will love these rich texts” (76).

What is the main point of Jago’s chapter on poems?

Teachers should create lessons that have students working through a poem as if they’ve been critics for decades.

How does this help students with poetry?

Students will begin to form a working relationship with terms and techniques used in poetry through identifying and discussing them. Asking students to do the work rather than providing everything for them allows students to develop the skills necessary to analyze poems on their own. This also gets students talking and interacting with one another in an attempt to work through a difficult poem. Another thought would be that giving students high expectations of their poetry skills provides an opportunity for them to fill those gaps with working knowledge.

How do we choose poems?

I liked Jago’s idea of having students bring in poems for the teacher to do a cold reading. Teachers are not infallible and students must understand this. While teachers are respected as founts of knowledge, it is important that students realize how much teachers have to work at poems too. When it comes to poems that teachers choose for their students, I think we can rely on a fairly even split of classical poems and more modern works. This not only gives students a chance to work on the harder, classical literature, but then turns it around and lets them use their poetry skills with modern works. It is also interesting to have a discussion on the progression of poetry and how it has changed over time, as a whole. There are still many poets who focus on classical forms but the emergence of new forms and styles of poetry is exciting to students.

Can journal writing impact class discussion?

Carol Jago introduces another sound idea in the form of journaling about poems. The key point here is that students have time to write about texts before they are discussed. Students can ask questions of the text, begin to form interpretations and thoughts to bring up during discussion. One of the major issues students admit to with classroom discussions is not being able to come up with ideas “on the spot.” This activity works to eliminate that. Not all students will come up with ground-shattering ideas, but the majority of students will have some thoughts or questions to contribute—and getting them talking is sometimes more important than what they say.

Notes on “The Raven”

Most students have probably heard about this poem. Some will be familiar with certain lines, while others will have already read and discussed it. What many probably don’t know is the idea that Poe explained how he created this poem. I didn’t know, but I’m very interested to know what he had to say. Jago summarizes some of his key points, but I’d personally like to read more. It is information like this that provides interest and a unique perspective to poems. One question I have to ask here, is when do we share this information with students? Background information like this can be a fantastic introduction to the material, but then students already have an idea of what the author wanted to accomplish. I would prefer to have this information slated after discussion of a work so that students can compare their own answers with those of the author. Just as Professor Pytash did in regard to the case studies we looked over, it is crucial to have students present their own ideas before giving them the “answers.” I say “answers” loosely because poetry is open for interpretation. Not all students will come up with similar answers, and that is what makes discussion worthwhile.