A Review on the Teaching of Poetry in Secondary Schools

Scientific Study from the year 1990 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: A, University of the West Indies (School of Education), course: The Teaching of English, language: English, abstract: This review attempts to examine closely some of the methods that have been used in the teaching of poetry in secondary schools up to recent times and the suggestions that have been made to improve the status of poetry in schools and to help students to enjoy poetry.

Indeed, poetry is one of the most creative forms of expression. It is language at its most meaningful, language carefully shaped and crafted into its most perfect form. Poetry encompasses all forms of human experience, from the simplest to the most intimate and complex. It speaks at once to the intellectual and the ¿ordinary¿ man, the adult and the child. To imagine that poetry deals only with great experiences and great people is to greatly undervalue poetry.

The Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (1965, p. 159) states that ¿poetry should matter and be felt to matter, in the community¿ and that its social function is no less important than its other functions. Nevertheless, critics of poetry seem to be united in the opinion that poetry is unpopular among adults as well as high school students worldwide. It is a fact that the majority of high school students are either indifferent or hostile to poetry. Dias and Hayhoe (1988 p.4) quote Greeves (1988) as saying that ¿Poetry has become so rare in schools that it ought to be put on the endangered list.¿