Poetry in the classroom

By Helene Lundberg

For someone poems can be boring and many wonder why we have to work so much with poems in the classroom, especially when you find the poems difficult to understand. However, the reasons why we are learning poems are many. The Norwegian competence aims from LK06 says that “read and understand different types of texts of varying length from different sources” (Udir, 2006), this include poetry as well. Poetry is, and has always been, a huge part of literature tradition in Britain and English speaking countries, and pupils in school are supposed to learn about these countries. Poetry is also a genre we often come across in our daily life, and poems are often short texts and that appeal to many students. Poems are also a great platform for learning to read between the lines.

When students have reach 5^th and 6^th grade, they will have a greater vocabulary and we can introduce them to some more poetry terms. Rhyme schemes are something they probably are getting used to, and this might be one of the easiest things to discover in a poem. Other devices used in a poem could be alliteration, when a line or verse in a poem contains several words that begins on the letter. Assonance are when lines or verses contains words with repeating vowels or sounds. Here is one example:

  

http://powerupseo.com/free-assonance-examples.html 

Poetry can also be a good way for Norwegian students to learn new words and pronunciations. Reading a poem with several rhymes aloud English learners to figure out how words are pronounced, especially if they know one of the rhyme words pronunciations, they could figure out how the other rhyme word should sound based on the flow of them poem.  For anyone to learn new words, you have to be exposed for new words. Some vocabulary learning strategies a teacher could use in a poetry lesson are making the students identify similarities between English and Norwegian, visualize words that students have a tough time understanding, and picking out chunks or lines to see if there are some words that often occur together.

As we can see, poetry is an important part of the English subject in Norwegian schools. By reading poetry you do not only learn about different cultures, you also become more familiar with the genre and poetry terms, and it is a great way for a class to learn new words and understand the language.

Sources: 

Birketveit and Williams (2013) Literature for the English classroom. Fagbokforlaget Vigmostad & Bjørke AS

Munden (2014) Engelsk på mellomtrinnet. Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS
LK06 http://www.udir.no/kl06/eng1-03/Hele/Kompetansemaal/kompetansemal-etter-7.-arstrinn/?lplang=eng 25.11.15

Photo: http://powerupseo.com/free-assonance-examples.html  25.11.15