Ways to teach poetry in an interesting manner to school students.

1. Teaching
of
Poetry

2. POEM
The word poem has been derived
from Middle French word poe‘me in
1540s (replacing the word poesy) and
Latin word poema which literally
means thing made or created.

3. POETRY
It is not possible to define poetry in clear and final terms,
because, like truth and beauty, it is an abstract term.
The definitions of Poetry by various poets and critics are given
below to give an idea about the real nature of Poetry :
 “Poetry is metrical composition.”(Johnson)
 “Poetry is musical thought.” (Carlyle)
 “Poetry is the expression of supreme words in a supreme
form(Coleridge)
 “Poetry is the explanation of life through feelings and
imagination.” (Hudson)
 “Poetry is at bottom the criticism of life.” (Mathew Arnold)

4. POETRY
What is poetry? Who knows?
Not a rose, but the scent of a rose;
Not the sky, but the light in the sky;
Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly;
Not the sea, but the sound of the sea;
Not myself, but what makes me
See, hear, and feel something that prose
Can not! and what it is, who knows?
By Eleanor Farjeon

6.  Acrostic
 Sonnet
 Limerick
 Haiku
 Couplet
 Free verse
 Ode
 Ballad
 Elegy
 Blank verse
 Visual poetry/Concrete poem
TYPES OF POEMS

8. OBJECTIVES
Primary Level
 To enable pupils to enjoy a poem.
 To enable pupils to read aloud the poem with proper rhythm
and intonation.
 To enable students to enjoy recitation, individual or chorus
of the poem.
 To develop a taste for poetry reading and writing.
 To train the emotions, feelings and imagination of the
students.
• To entertain and extend reader’s imagination.

9. Secondary Level
 To provide an opportunity to the pupils to appreciate and
derive aesthetic pleasure from the poem being taught to them.
 To develop the power of appreciation of beauty.
 To make the students understand the thoughts and
imagination contained in the poem.
 To enable the students to analyse diction, tone, form, genre,
theme and figure of speech.

10.  To enable the students to critically evaluate poetry.
 To inspire the pupils for writing poetry.
 To enable the pupils to comprehend the central idea of the
poem.
 To enable the pupils to appreciate the message of the poet
contained in the poem.
 To appreciate the music of rhyme and rhythm.
 To acquaint the students with different styles of poetry.
 To develop emotional, aesthetic and imaginative sides of
students’ personality.

11. Poetry lifts the reader from this world to another world with an
intensity that other genres may not contain in such a limited
space.
Teaching of poetry should be seen as a participatory experience.
One of the most effective ways of helping students becoming
more adept in understanding poetry is to encourage them to try
their hand at composing it.
How can we take the students into this world of imagination?

14.  Show them pictures like this from everyday life and give
them activities based on imagination.
 Each one of us has imagined various figures in the
clouds.
 Make them believe that imagination is natural to human
beings.

15. ACROSTIC POEM
An acrostic poem
Creates a challenge
Random words on a theme
Or whole sentences that rhyme
Select your words carefully
To form a word from top to bottom
Is the aim of this poetry style
Choose a word then go!

16. POETRY
“Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”
__ Robert Frost
 Poetry is the highest form of literary expression.
 It has an aesthetic effect on human mind.
 It gives details and facts in a beautiful form.

17. TECHNIQUES
Poetry can not be taught, the teacher can only create situations in
which a poem may have its fullest significance for the pupils
reading it.
As far as possible the poem should be read as a whole but in the
condition that the poem is too long, it must be divided into units
in such a way, so that it may not lose its rhythm, music and
emotional efforts.
While teaching poems, the teacher should appeal to the emotions
of the students. In a poetry class, a student must enter a different
world and experience a new joy.

18. TEACHING OF POETRY
“The aim of teaching poetry is not so much to improve the
child’s knowledge of English as to add to his joy and increase
his power of appreciation of beauty.”
_Menon and Patel

19. TEACHING OF POETRY
Teaching of poetry is quite different from the teaching of prose.
Poetry provides aesthetic pleasure to pupils and it plays a
significant role in refinement of emotions.
While prose sharpens the intellect of students, poetry enhances
their flight of imagination.

20. STEPS OF TEACHING POETRY
Pre-reading
It is very important to make students ready to read the poetry. We should involve
them in activities which will create the right attitude and willingness to learn.
 We can ask some questions related to the theme of the poem based on the
previous knowledge of the students.
 We can ask the students to guess the theme of the poem just by reading the
title of the poem.
 We can read a poem similar in subject matter with the poem to be taught.
 If the poem to be learnt is descriptive, a picture can be shown and questions
based on the picture can be asked.
Whatever method we employ for introduction, we should be particular about not
to spoil the environment necessary for the poem.

21. While Reading
 Model Reading – The teacher must recite the poem with full
vigor and enthusiasm using proper rhythm, pauses and
intonation. This helps the pupils to follow the tone and rhythm
of the poem and learn the pronunciation of new words.
 Meaning of new words and phrases should be explained by
the teacher as they may create hindrance in the comprehension
of the poem.

22.  The teacher must bring out the beauty of the figures of
speech and throw light on the ideas or references involved.
 Imitation Reading – After reading the teacher should ask
some pupils to read the poem one by one. She should help
them to recite it with effect, taking care of their
pronunciation and intonation.

23. FIGURES OF SPEECH
• Alliteration
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification
• Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron
• Synecdoche
• Irony
• Pun
• Antithesis
• Assonance
• Transferred epithet
• Hyperbole
• Imagery

24. ALLITERATION - The repetition of consonant sounds at the
beginning of the words.
SIMILE - A comparison between two distinctly different things is
indicated by the word ‘like’ or ‘as’.
METAPHOR - A word or expression that in literal usage denotes
one kind of thing is applied to a distinctly different kind of thing,
without asserting a comparison.
PERSONIFICATION – Human characteristics and sensibilities are
attributed to inanimate objects, natural forces or abstract ideas.
ONOMATOPOEIA – The use of words whose sound imitates the
sound of the thing being named.
OXYMORON – Two contradictory words or phrases are combined
in a single expression.

25. SYNECDOCHE – A part of something stands for the whole thing.
IRONY – The meaning which the speaker applies differs sharply from
the meaning that is ostensibly expressed.
PUN – A play on a word with two or more meanings.
IMAGERY – The pictorial quality achieved through a collection of
images which appeals to the sense of taste, smell, hearing and touch.
ANTITHESIS – Opposing or contrasting ideas are balanced against
each other.
ASSONANCE – The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.
TRANSFERRED EPITHET – An adjective linked to a noun that it
would not normally modify.
HYPERBOLE – An extravagant exaggeration of fact or of possibility.

26. POST READING
Comprehension questions
 The purpose of these questions is to know if the meaning of
the poem is clear to the students.
 They also help in making certain ideas more clear in the
minds of the reader.
 These questions should be simple and should not break the
continuity of the poem.
 The number of such questions asked depends upon the length
and ideas of the poem.

27. Appreciation questions
 These questions test appreciation of beauty of thought,
images and emotions.
 They also let the students know more about the beauty of
style and language.

28. CHORAL RECITATION
The pupils should be made to recite the poem in chorus. Later
on they can recite it independently. It also heightens aural effect
which is necessary for appreciation.
After this a creative assignment related to the poem can be
given.

29. “Read each poem twice, give the children time to form their own
impressions, invite them to criticize and help them in doing so. Let
the poetry period be, as far as possible, a period of joy, a period of
pondering over things they love already. Let them choose for
themselves the poems they are to learn by heart, each choosing his/her
own favourites. Thus, only then can we develop a taste for poetry and
train their ear to the variety of beautiful sounds. Thus, only can we
rouse in them some idea of the wealth of poetry that lies before them.
Remember that we must aim at turning out readers of poetry, not
students of poetry.”
_Alexander Haddow

30. AFFECTIVE FALLACY
W.K.Wimsatt and M.C.Beardsley introduced affective fallacy to
describe the critical approach of evaluating a work of literature
by the emotional effect it produces upon the reader.
Proponents of new criticism regard such an approach as
misguided because they feel it confuses the work with its result,
what it is with what it does.

31. INTENTIONAL FALLACY
The term proposed by Wimsatt and Beardsley signifies what is
claimed to be the error of interpreting and evaluating a literary
work by reference to evidence, outside the text itself, for the
intention – the design and purposes – of its author.
The objective theory holds that a literary work is separate, a
thing in itself, and should not be judged by external evidence –
by letters of the author, by introductions, by conversations.

32. Thank You