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Doorways To Poems

This document provides several approaches or "doorways" for readers to gain comprehension of poems, especially challenging poems. It suggests starting by reading the poem silently and aloud. Then, consider questions about the speaker, who is being spoken to, and the situation. Look at the beginning, end, and title for connections or contradictions. The document also advises having students identify different voices, underline unclear parts, circle interesting words or lines, and always rereading the full poem aloud together before ending discussion. The goal is to give students tools to engage with poems and feel successful in asking questions.

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167 views2 pages

Doorways To Poems

This document provides several approaches or "doorways" for readers to gain comprehension of poems, especially challenging poems. It suggests starting by reading the poem silently and aloud. Then, consider questions about the speaker, who is being spoken to, and the situation. Look at the beginning, end, and title for connections or contradictions. The document also advises having students identify different voices, underline unclear parts, circle interesting words or lines, and always rereading the full poem aloud together before ending discussion. The goal is to give students tools to engage with poems and feel successful in asking questions.

Uploaded by

aekulak
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Into Poetry

Doorways to Poems
Some doorways for readers approaching a challenging (or not) poem

1. Read the poem silently

2. Listen to the poem being read aloud

3. Now, consider the following three questions. (they don’t work for all poems, but
do for many)

Who is the speaker in the poem? What do you know or infer about this
speaker?

Who is being spoken to?

What is the situation in the poem?

(think, for example, about a difficult poem such as Donne’s “The Sunne Rising”: this
simple approach helps many students begin or read the poem with some degree of
comprehension)

4. Look at the beginning of the poem; look at the ending. Is there contradiction?
Reinforcement? Repetition?

5. Consider the title if there is on.

6. Sometimes there are two or more speakers in a poem, or several “voices.” You
can help students to comprehend by asking them to decide how many speakers (or
voices) they find in a poem such as Henry Reed’s Naming of Parts. This is a useful
poem (and a wonderful one) to use because there are no right answers. Students
can defend two or three voices – the exercise does two things: it forces them to deal
carefully with the words of the poem, and it gives them an entry point to
comprehension.

7. Follow this up with something that on first observations seems nonsense, but of
course is not.

Ask them what they notice?

You will likely receive some comment about the parentheses.

Then – have them try reading all the lines in order that are not in parentheses –
then those that are in parenthesis.
Into Poetry

Then – try reading the poem in two voices

8. Ask students to underline three things in the poem they do not understand or
which puzzle them (or more than three things, depending…)

7. Circle two words, phrases, or lines in the poem that they like or find interesting.

It is perfectly ok to circle something that they do not fully understand.

8. Deal with the queries first – then have them read out their likes.

*** Students need to be given tools to enter poems. They also need to be given
credit for asking questions.

*** And this procedure puts all students on an equal footing; we all must find
something that puzzles us.
And one final point

Kids claim, with some justification, that we do nothing but dissect poems. I make it
an unbreakable rule (and have a student remind me about the time) that no matter
where we are in our discussion, exploration, etc. of the poem before the bell rings

We read the complete poem aloud again. Sometime I read it; more often, as I
probably read it initially, we all read it aloud in unison with my voice setting the pace
and phrasing.

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