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[CCBC-Net] CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 33, Issue 4
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From: WriterBabe <writerbabe>
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:26:24 -0400
Hmm. While I completely agree that poetry has often been taught badly with too much analysis, I find that I get irritated by the question "Does it matter what the poet was trying to say?" Of course it matters! I used to be a high school English teacher and I remember stumbling through a class when I was being observed by the chair of the English dep't. We were discussing a poem (can't remember which) and the students kept coming up with interpretations, many of which were flat-out wrong (if sometimes interesting). But, because I wanted to be encouraging, I kept saying, "Oh, that's a unique interpretation" and never saying, "Uh-uh." I got chewed out by the chair, of course.
Now, I believe I was right to be encouraging, but wrong to encourage every interpretation as right. The trick about poems, imho, is that they DO mean something to the person who wrote them. But that something can have different personal meanings to the reader. In other words, it DOES matter what the poet was trying to say, but it also matters what the poem is saying to the child.
So, I throw this back at teachers and librarians--how do you "teach" poetry so that it includes the author's meaning and readers' resonances? I can't claim to have been successful at that, so I'm not asking a rhetorical question here. Inquiring minds really want to know...
Marilyn Singer<------------who's much happier these days writing poetry than attempting to teach it.
In a message dated 04/04/08 13:01:46 Eastern Daylight Time, ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu writes: To extend Monica's point (about poetry being presented as something to be figured out) one step further, I'd venture to say that often poetry is presented to children with the goal of trying to figure out what the
*poet* was trying to say, "What does the poet mean when he says...",
"Why does she use the phrase...", which is really just an exercise in futility. Does it matter what the poet was trying to say? Is not the most important thing what the poem says to the child?
Received on Fri 04 Apr 2008 12:26:24 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:26:24 -0400
Hmm. While I completely agree that poetry has often been taught badly with too much analysis, I find that I get irritated by the question "Does it matter what the poet was trying to say?" Of course it matters! I used to be a high school English teacher and I remember stumbling through a class when I was being observed by the chair of the English dep't. We were discussing a poem (can't remember which) and the students kept coming up with interpretations, many of which were flat-out wrong (if sometimes interesting). But, because I wanted to be encouraging, I kept saying, "Oh, that's a unique interpretation" and never saying, "Uh-uh." I got chewed out by the chair, of course.
Now, I believe I was right to be encouraging, but wrong to encourage every interpretation as right. The trick about poems, imho, is that they DO mean something to the person who wrote them. But that something can have different personal meanings to the reader. In other words, it DOES matter what the poet was trying to say, but it also matters what the poem is saying to the child.
So, I throw this back at teachers and librarians--how do you "teach" poetry so that it includes the author's meaning and readers' resonances? I can't claim to have been successful at that, so I'm not asking a rhetorical question here. Inquiring minds really want to know...
Marilyn Singer<------------who's much happier these days writing poetry than attempting to teach it.
In a message dated 04/04/08 13:01:46 Eastern Daylight Time, ccbc-net-request at ccbc.education.wisc.edu writes: To extend Monica's point (about poetry being presented as something to be figured out) one step further, I'd venture to say that often poetry is presented to children with the goal of trying to figure out what the
*poet* was trying to say, "What does the poet mean when he says...",
"Why does she use the phrase...", which is really just an exercise in futility. Does it matter what the poet was trying to say? Is not the most important thing what the poem says to the child?
Received on Fri 04 Apr 2008 12:26:24 PM CDT
