06-26-2013, 07:30 AM
When I went to high school, there was very little poetry taught, and it was taught by disinterested English teachers fulfilling some boring 2 chapter obligation. And it was taught like history - with the powder-wigged Victorians rolled out with their archaic language, strange diction and difficult to grasp skills. No wonder I detested poetry - for a decade, I would gloss over every time I came into contact with it.
Poetry is not history - you can't force feed the hard stuff first. Poetry should be taught by drug pushers trying to hook 12 year olds at the school yard: You don't start them with high-test smack and try to lure them back with the romance of vomiting and shivers and night sweats and track marks! You give them a little reefer to make them laugh and show them how fun drugs are, then wait for them to come begging for the hard stuff.
Students need to be started on fun poetry with modern language they can relate to, some salaciousness, some dirty words (oh my!!) some snickering and blushing and laughing until they are begging to learn what the fuck Shakespeare is talking about!!
Never mind me. I rant and reading back over what I wrote, I probably shouldn't even be allowed around students!
Poetry is not history - you can't force feed the hard stuff first. Poetry should be taught by drug pushers trying to hook 12 year olds at the school yard: You don't start them with high-test smack and try to lure them back with the romance of vomiting and shivers and night sweats and track marks! You give them a little reefer to make them laugh and show them how fun drugs are, then wait for them to come begging for the hard stuff.
Students need to be started on fun poetry with modern language they can relate to, some salaciousness, some dirty words (oh my!!) some snickering and blushing and laughing until they are begging to learn what the fuck Shakespeare is talking about!!
Never mind me. I rant and reading back over what I wrote, I probably shouldn't even be allowed around students!