To Instructors Teaching Poetry

If you don't believe in rote--think it's olde--then I'm glad you weren't my teacher!  I've never heard a student make that objection to memorizing poetry.  Funny, though, I heard, "Why should we learn these punctuation rules?  They're so old."  This remark came from a college student whose punctuation was atrocious, and I gave her Will Durant's definition of literacy:  "the ability to pass on to succeeding generations all the aspects of one's own culture." (Our Oriental Heritage)

Schiller's desk

I took this photo in Weimar, but I remember this image as a picture in my high school lit book.

There you have it, a perfect rationale for learning 500 lines of poetry:  it's part of our culture.  Thanks to those overly-rambunctious Brits who practically conquered the world and translated everything in it into English, one can hardly object on multi-cultural grounds to encouraging succeeding generations to retain some of it by memory.  If some students want  to recite in a different language, they can hand you copies, and you can follow phonetically.  Anything to get 500 lines of meaningful verse into their kens!  Those bits of wisdom or compassion or humor will be useful to them all their lives--I am living proof.

I did not require students to recite in front of the class or to do it with expression.  Time constraints and shyness were no problem, therefore.  While the class was busy on another assignment, individuals came to my desk, and we had some relaxing one-on-one time together as they softly recited their masterpieces and I softly commented on their choices.  We actually bonded over poetry.

Some students wanted to stand before the class, and their reason was usually that they had found something so good they felt compelled to share it.  Keep in mind that in my college lit classes (mostly freshmen), students didn't know each other as well as those in public schools do.  Some wanted to preserve their shield of anonymity.  That didn't stop any student from feeling perfectly comfortable with me.  When I occasionally taught off-campus courses in high schools, it was the same, even though I sometimes saw them only once a week.  They enjoyed reciting poetry much more than they appreciated dissecting it!  However, they performed well when tested on terms.  Perhaps committing their own chosen lines to memory helped them to understand the forms. 

Tune in again for more discussion, and feel free to leave comments on your experiences in the classroom.