Methods for teaching for poetry?

[Mama Geek]

I know I have time with dd and am not looking to start today, but in maybe 2 years.  I totally get reading classics and good literature and have a decent understanding of literary analysis and also think reading for the love of reading is important.  I never really got poetry.  I have read it through school including college.

 

I have been looking through the Treadwell readers and the Elson readers which I will probably end up using some of along with other things.  There is poetry throughout the readers.  When you are going over poems for elementary age kids what do you do other than just read or have them memorize?  I realize that discussing questions or maybe morals or lessons will be a part of it too, but what else do you do if anything?  This is one of those holes I have in my education.  What do you hope for your kids to get out of it?

[Curlymom]

My primary focus is to have my kids enjoy the beauty of the language. After that, I make sure they understand the poem, we talk a little bit about the rhyme scheme, and occasionally I have them memorize a short poem.

 

We have poetry tea once or twice a week. Which is basically snack time while I read one or two poems. I like classic poetry, so I've read poetry by classic writers like Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and even Shakespeare. I usually have them draw a picture from the poem. For a younger child, you could start with Mother Goose or A. A. Milne or find a children's poetry anthology.

 

We also use the Memoria Press Poetry book, which includes some literary analysis. Knowing literary terms isn't super important in elementary so I use this sparingly, but it's a nice introduction.

[Slache]

I've heard that the MCT poetry series is amazing and I intend on beginning it in 3rd. 

[forty-two]

I am a huge believer in nursery rhymes as an ideal introduction to poetry - great for developing an intuitive feel for poetry and learning to love sound and rhythm in language - for both kids *and* adults :thumbup:.

 

I did the AP Lit thing - learned the technical terms and used them in analyzing poems - but I never *got* poetry.  I considered myself a math & science person, and the apparent "inconsistency" of the "rules" in poetry drove me *insane*.  I sort of thought you understood poetry *through* analyzing it, but with all the apparent exceptions to the rules, it was impossible to know how to apply them - it was like you had to understand the poem *before* you analyzed it - there was no other way to know which rule to apply where - but that was impossible, right?  Because without analyzing the poem first, how could you ever knew what it meant?  No way that I could see - poetry was entirely closed off to me, and I was mostly good with that.  (I also approached Latin the same way - you translated in order *to* find out what it meant - but even Latin had enough ambiguity that you could never be sure you were right - you took a stab in the dark and picked something that looked consistent as you attempted to put the various pieces together - and why *this* way was right and the *other* ways were wrong was a complete mystery.)

 

So while I in theory agreed with classical education's "Go poetry!" attitude, in practice I had no personal affinity for poetry and so it was solidly stuck on the "someday" pile.  However, entirely separately ;), I did like nursery rhymes - had fond memories of them as a kid, and I was all for doing them with the kids.  And we have, since dd8 was three.  Lots of fun for us all, enjoying the fun rhythms and wordplay :).  And eventually I decided that I wanted to learn to love poetry - so many people I respect loved poetry that I believed there was something there and I wanted to experience it.  And I read several books on poetry written by poets, where they shared their love and enthusiasm for poetry.  And I learned that poetry is *meant* to be understood just by reading and re-reading it - it's intelligible language, not a puzzle to solve or a cypher to decrypt.  Laugh if you want, but this was news to me ;). 

 

Also, I learned that enjoying the sound and feel of a poem in your ear and mouth as you say it is at least half the point of poetry, and in fact enjoying the sound of a difficult poem's language can be the hook that keeps you reading and re-reading to increase your understanding of the meaning - especially as the sound and rhythm actually *carries* a large part of the meaning.  And the place of analysis was not to somehow make sense of something otherwise unintelligible, but to learn more about how a poem you already enjoy works - analysis deepens your understanding, and allows you to make your intuitive understanding explicit and more detailed - but it doesn't *replace* an intuitive understanding.  And I was able to connect to all that *because* of my years of developing a feel for language and love of wordplay through *nursery rhymes* - I just hadn't realized that nursery rhymes "counted" as poetry - but they use language just like "real" poetry does, only in a very overt, easily accessible way.  Nursery rhymes are totally poetry for beginners.  After years of them, me and my tone-deaf ear can appreciate the more subtle rhythms of "regular" children's poetry :thumbup:.

 

I'm becoming more and more convinced the education in the early years is all about providing lots and lots of exposure to the good things you want to later on analyze and understand in depth - that fostering a love of the subject and developing an intuitive feel for it is the best preparation for analysis, because at its best analysis is learning more about something you already love, so you can love it even more :).  So that's my goal for poetry for us - we read nursery rhymes and poems from an children's anthology and poems from a single poet, with the goal of enjoyment and intuitive understanding, seeing poetry as beautiful communication rather than beautiful-but-incomprehensible.  So I make an effort to read well, feeling the rhythm and reading smoothly.  I exaggeration the rhythm and get a good sing-song going for nursery rhymes, mostly because it's fun ;), but also because it makes the rhythm very clear and accessible even to littles (and tone-deaf adults ;)).  With "regular" poetry I read normally, sensitive to the rhythm but not emphasizing or exaggerating it.  I ask if the kids have any questions, and help them think through some of the imagery, and help explain what any complicated sentence structures are saying.

 

I have the first two MCT poetry books, and I enjoyed them - his love for poetry and language shines through.  I've also really enjoyed Mary Oliver (A Poetry Handbook and Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse) and Kenneth Koch (Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry) - they were great resources for *me* to learn more about how to appreciate poetry.  I do think parents need to feel some love or affection or wonder or enjoyment of the poetry they are reading to their kids, or else it really lessens the likelihood that their kids will enjoy it - better simple but enjoyable nursery rhymes than great-but-meh poetry. 

 

(The number of posts from hs'ers who are complaining that they faithfully read poetry to their kids (or taught Latin, or logic, or great literature, or...) because they were told by more experienced educators that it would do <insert great and wonderful and necessary things>, even though the parent didn't see the point when they started and didn't enjoy the process, and shockingly, contrary to the claims made, their kids think it's pointless, too - just like their parents.  Often this is used to say that clearly poetry or whatever isn't what it's cracked up to be (just like the parent always thought), but imho it says more about what happens when a parent teaches something they don't like or get - it's not surprising they convey not just information but their *attitudes* about a subject, too.)

 

ETA:  Sorry for the novel - it's just that liking poetry seems to be like being "mathy" - either you are or your aren't, and there's nothing to be done about it if you aren't.  And the natural poetry lovers, like the naturally mathy, don't tend to have a clue what it's like to not love poetry or math - they are full of enthusiasm for spreading the love, but often don't have advice for how to *get* the love if you currently lack it.  I'm naturally mathy, but I am *not* naturally a poetry lover :tongue_smilie:, and after stumbling around on my own for years, I finally stumbled into something that works, something so elegantly simple and historically common that I cannot believe I didn't have a clue - to use nursery rhymes as a poetry introduction, for both kids and newbie adults.  And so I'm the zealous new convert, proclaiming the way to poetry love ;).

[Coco_Clark]

I think "getting" poetry is 90% exposure to poetry. If you haven't ever read anything but shel Silverstein your whole life it's a steep learning curve indeed when expected to analyze great poets in high school!

 

I'd start today with nursery rhymes. Read them, sing them, memorize a few favorites. Let them jump off rhyming games, or clapping games, or movement games.

 

Later start collecting great children's collections. AA Milne and Robert Stevenson are classic beginners. Read them, pick out favorites to start you own collection. Mention by the wayside when poems rhyme, when they have an interesting meter, when they use a metaphor, ect. You can even memorize these! My 5yo knows Jabberwocky by heart because he and his older brother asked for it so many times.

 

Slowly dive into a collection of poems that are very famous, but not necessarily "for children". Pick a favorite poet and dive into their particular works, ect and so on.

 

I don't think analysis as such should be approached until Logic stage.