Transcript The Teaching of Poetry

Hong Kong Budding Poets
(English) Award
Presented by NET Section
&
Co-organised with Gifted Education Section
EDB
Secondary Workshop
15 & 17 March 2006
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Objectives
• To encourage the teaching of poetry
• To encourage the use of poetry in teaching English
• To introduce a variety of poetic structures and
devices
• To develop strategies for assisting entrants in the
Budding Poets (English) Award
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Poetry Discovery Chart
How to get students writing poetry…
Brainstorm
• What you know already
• What you want to know
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Value of poetry
Appreciate
sounds
words and
patterns
Integratio
n
Confidence
Phonic
skills
Fun
Spoken
expression
Creative
writing
Creativit
y
Imagination
Language
skills
Vocabulary
Variet
y
Express
feeling and
opinions
Poetry and the Curriculum
– In the implementation of the English Language
Curriculum, “the use of a wide range of
language arts materials…(i.e.using English to
respond and to give expression to real and
imaginative experience) and to
develop…creativity.”
‘English Language Curriculum Guide’ (P1-S3) p.11
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Some Elements of Poetry
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Harmonic Textures
A Sense of Form
Figures of Speech
Rhythm & Meter
Line Breaks
Stanza Breaks
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1.Harmonic Textures
• Alliteration: dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon
• Assonance: dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon
• Consonance: bare ruined choirs
• Rhyme: dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon
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1. Harmonic Textures
Activity One
Look at the poem and definitions
Use different coloured pens to identify the
patterns of sound
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1.Harmonic Textures
Notice how these devices work together in the opening of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan":
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2. A Sense of Form
• partly visual; its look on the page
• partly auditory; patterns of sound
• pre-existing patterns; like sonnets
• free verse
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From a Railway Carriage
FASTER than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
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3. Figures of Speech
Metaphor, Imagery, Simile:
Time is a river
Time hangs heavy
Time is like the breeze
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Theme: Winter
Snowflakes
Snowflakes spill from heaven’s hand
Lovely and chaste like smooth white sand.
A veil of wonder laced in light
Falling gently on a winter’s night.
(see handout for full poem)
~by Linda A. Copp~
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4. Rhythm & Meter
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
Read the two lines aloud (Activity Three)
Can you find the rhythmic pattern?
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Stressed and Unstressed Syllables
-
x
x
-
x -
x
x
-
x
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
-
x
x
-
x
-
x
x
-
x
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
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5. Line Breaks
Poetry is written in lines
The poet can select line breaks by:
• counting stresses
• counting syllables
• counting feet - iambic pentameter
(e.g.5 iambic feet per line)
or by the poet’s own rules:
• free verse
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6. Stanza Breaks
Stanzas are visual groupings of lines.
The Poet can use stanzas of any length:
•
•
•
•
•
•
couplets
tercets
quatrains
quintets
sestets
octaves
14 line poem can be 3 quatrains and a couplet
or an octave and a sestet
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So what about rhyme?
The usual design is fine,
An ending rhyme for every line.
Half-rhymes are quite acceptable,
Consider using these as well.
But sometimes it is so sublime
Within a line to bind the rhyme
And flying blind, your rhyme
will climb.
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Group activity
– Look at the picture on the table
– What theme does that picture suggest to you?
– Brainstorm that theme to develop a
vocabulary and image bank
– Decide upon the first line
– As a group, draft an 8-line poem, bear in mind
the elements already discussed
– Ruthlessly revise your draft
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Teaching Poetry
• Use the five senses
• Encourage careful
observation of concrete
events and scenes
• Encourage the use of
figurative language
• Make each word count
• Consider using an existing
poetry structure to create
new work
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Some Ideas for Starting
• Play at making similes - the moon is like a
banana...the moon is like a white smile….
• Repetitive phrases e.g.
At the end of the rainbow I saw.…
• Icicles are like….
• In my magic box I will put …. (list things you
like…)
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More ideas for starting students
to write
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
I am afraid of………
I wish I was……..
It’s a secret but…..
I dreamed I saw……
In my pocket….
What is Yellow?………
Alliteration…One waggly walrus…two
toothsome tigers…four funny friends...
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Teaching Resources:
http://www.education.tas.gov.au/english/
formsof.htm
http://www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk/resource.htm
http://www.poetryexpress.org
The Learning and Teaching of Poetry (Secondary 1-3)
– Curriculum Development Institute (2002)
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