How to teach a poem in the classroom

How to teach a poem in the classroom

Prof. Tushar Chavan

1) Discussion on Title

2) Ice breakers

3) Information of poet

4) Reading of the poem

5) New words and their meaning

6) Paraphrase

7) Figures of speech with explanation

8) Special features

9) Activity sheet

I follow these steps.

Prof. B.G.Badgujar

If I am teaching a poem how would I go?       

Poem is for enjoyment and learning also. It is meant for beauty and adds the feeling s of interest. The students enjoy the beauty of the poem for the longer period of time. We teachers might be remembering some of the beautiful poems we learnt long back. The credit of this goes to our teachers and also our active participation in the classroom teaching.             

Let's decide teaching steps for maximum learning of a poem.                   
1. The teacher should introduce the title and tell its meaning. The students should be attracted to go through the poem.                

2. The teacher should read the poem with proper pronunciation, intonation and stress.          

3. He should ask the students to read it loudly. May be one or two students to increase students' confidence. The teacher would ask them for silent  reading for comprehension.                                  

4. The teacher would introduce difficult words, some time give hints and let the students learn freely at their own.                                       

5.The teacher may  tell the summary in simple possible words or ask the students to tell the contents by asking simple  questions.                           
6.The teacher should take each activity one by one according to the format. The teacher should help them to discover the answers.                        

7.One important thing is the teacher should give clues, key points etc. to make the students feel that they are able answer at their own.                           

This sort of feeling of the students makes their learning easy. The overall participation of students make the learning easy.

Prof. Sanjay Chidrewar

I feel that teaching a poem is not a child's play. The teacher must have a poetic bent of mind in order to give justice. He must creat poetic atmosphere in the classroom. He must give paraphrase of the poem n explain the poem with its difficult words n phrases n poetic devices after reading it with rhythm. He must inspire his students to enjoy the beauty of the poem.

Prof. Sagar Jagdhne

Absolutely agreed with steps which given by various teachers here while teaching poetry , but I want to draw attention on something which is here,,

1)  Poetry is like a document which never has a perfect(one)  meaning ..

While you go through it again and again we may found various layers ..

We must explain the society, situation, contemporary problems etc .

2) For understanding poem we must try to - Reading between the lines-

Poet never said what he actually written !!

3 ) There is one proverb that we can't swim in the same river twice . We find new meaning by every reading , then there may be criticism ,

What kind of society,

Mood of poet ,

All this things also be considered while teaching ..

Rather then this we have our traditional ways of teaching which are helpful for students.

Prof. Kambale D.K.

Considering the above steps given by the teachers while teaching a poem in the class, giving them satisfaction it it is well prepared  with proper steps. Title, aim, new words and their meanings, presentation of the poem, poetic devices, participation of the students, presentation of different activities.

For more result to do

1)Increase the interest of the students in the learning and make them ready to respond for the exam. 2)develop the above steps for the teaching.

3)give the hints /clues for better understanding

4)let them understand the theme

5)let them understand the different activities.

6)provide study material to respond with the format of question paper.

7)prepare workbook for additional practice.

8)give them practice through workbook.

Prof. Ghanasham Dalave

Proper explanation of each line is expected with hidden meanings, ideas, tone, tenor of the poet. Overall meaning of the stanza and the poem should be explained in the class. Figures of speech explanation and to figure out the meanings of difficult ideas of the poet is also needed. While doing this interaction with students should go on. Only after doing all these things, students feel or say the teacher teaches. If we follow standard methodology of teaching poem then students make complaints about teaching. We have to balance our teachings with administration. There isn't any solution for this practical life teaching. Some may agree or disagree, but none can escape from the reality. Everyone tries to use exam oriented technique to increase the results of the institution.  There may be exceptions.

Prof. Adat V.S.

Teaching poetry is a challenge for us.

Tell about the title. Introduce the poet first. Tell about his work with contemporary writers. His typical characteristics.

Then discuss about the poetic devices used.

Read out the poem loudly.

We usually use recorded recitation. Or ask some students to read out for the class.

Explain different words, phrases, language used.

Tell the story in short.

Tell them to read by using rhyme and rhythm.

Deal with the activities.

Prof.Smt. Manjusha S.Sagrolikar

Try to evoke their creativity with brainstorming...

How I teach poem in my class?(techniques I apply)

1. If technology supports I ask the students to listen the audio clip of poem. Otherwise taking the turns students read aloud the poem with rhythm.

2. While reading aloud those who are listening pick up the unknown words, phrases, expressions,

3. In groups all together the class guess the meaning of the unknown words/phrases.

4. Students try to explain the title with the help of me. I facilitate where need.

5. Afterwards stanza wise we all together discuss on the theme,

 what does the poet intend to say? Why? If this happens in our life or in our surroundings how can we deal with such circumstances?

6. Summary of the poem.

7.Use of figures of speech, literally devices

8. Agree/disagree session: 

a. Important lines from the poem

b. Views of the poet.

Prof. Sanjay Kutarmare

I think, (regarding poetry section)

1. We must create a proper atmosphere for the subject of poetry.

2. We must discuss the title so that students should be able to guess the meaning of the lines of poem.

3. Ask the students to read the poem carefully to understand.

4. Ask the students to guess the meanings of the new words.

5. Explain the poem in short.

6. Ask the students to guess the message, theme of the poem etc.

7. Discuss poetic devices and doubts and difficulties of the poem.

Prof. Maikal R. Borkar

To increase the students Activities we should start the question from factual questions to discuss. Like true or False, fill in the blanks, fill the table, web diagram, match the pair etc.  Teacher should convert most of the questions into this format. It may help to everyone to understand the poem or text properly.Then turn to Inference and personal response which some time achieved only by a student having own concept and power to transform idea into English.

Prof. Sheela Narsimhan

Explaining the poem line by line takes away the realistic beauty of the poem. The teacher can discuss about the title and try to get response for this from the students and then the poem should be ready aloud in the class and the overall gist of the poem can be discussed. Later on we can take up the poetic devices followed by activities and finally the poetic creativity for this we can have a discussion with students as what theme based on the poem can be done for creativity.

Prof. Sanjay Patil

These are the steps generally followed by majority of the teachers.

While teaching poetry or prose I explain grammatical items, literary device in the due course of explaining a stanza or an extract. Even, the activities based on a particular topic are taken at the same time.