06-26-2013, 10:50 PM
I don't have much experience teaching children, but I suppose a lot of you are right that more should be done to get them interested in poetry. A teacher played Dylan Thomas as he read "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" and that was quite inspiring at the time. I'd like writing teachers who have already hooked students to help them realize that you don't have to be born a creative genius to write or read literature. I had a teacher tell me "you either get it, or you don't" which I thought was bull shit. The first time I read Keat's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," I tried too hard to analyze it and walked away feeling stupid. I listened to a reading of it about a year later after I had tried writing and had read more and I thought it was beautiful. I had a similar experience with Robert Frost's poem "Birches." The teacher would get students to post an analysis of the poems in class online and that livened classroom discussions and we all really dug into Frost. But, I came back to "Birches" and heard the poem read out loud after getting some feedback on my writing and my jaw almost dropped. Creative writing classes tap into something different than math. People can discover parts of themselves when they begin to write and a dedicated writing teacher can really help students who are struggling in their lives. However, at some point it would be good to know that you can stumble sometimes and that doesn't mean you have to give up. Dedicating some study to poetry and even learning some technical aspects of the art can help people to enjoy their lives. 
One last thing, consider showing students Metaphysical poems like Donne's "The Flea" let students know that the poem can be seen facetiously. Not only is it an example of a brilliant metaphysical conceit but it is also a lecherous guy trying to get laid. He drags stupid ideas like honor and chastity and shows them to be ridiculous and from my experience teenagers are often quite jaded on antiquated morals. Also, exploring questions like: Is Milton's portrayal of Eve in "Paradise Lost" sexist, misogynistic, or even proto feminist? Either way students can use the story to learn about these topics and free themselves from the chains that they don't realize are binding them. For boys, Stephen Crane deconstructs masculine paradigms using naturalism which I feel is very effective. The short poem "War is Kind" would be good. In part literary canons are a history and it is often a history that is different than what we receive in history classes.
One last thing, consider showing students Metaphysical poems like Donne's "The Flea" let students know that the poem can be seen facetiously. Not only is it an example of a brilliant metaphysical conceit but it is also a lecherous guy trying to get laid. He drags stupid ideas like honor and chastity and shows them to be ridiculous and from my experience teenagers are often quite jaded on antiquated morals. Also, exploring questions like: Is Milton's portrayal of Eve in "Paradise Lost" sexist, misogynistic, or even proto feminist? Either way students can use the story to learn about these topics and free themselves from the chains that they don't realize are binding them. For boys, Stephen Crane deconstructs masculine paradigms using naturalism which I feel is very effective. The short poem "War is Kind" would be good. In part literary canons are a history and it is often a history that is different than what we receive in history classes.