Schools neglect poetry

[Wuldric]

I adore Carol Ann Duffy and I made sure that I had tickets for her performance in my city. The reading was in fact sensational.

But the thing that I noticed, was that both DD's school and DS's school had not booked any tickets. If I were an English teacher (which I am not) I would have ensured that my A level class at least was there in force. No-one was there from either of my DC's schools apart from my DCs. It isn't every day that Carol Ann Duffy comes to town. Do you think I am being unreasonable in thinking that the schools in question were being pretty, well, useless in not taking students there?

She may grow to like it silver I hated going round boring old ruins as a kid, but guess what? I drag my own kids round now...

Pity my feelings haven't changed regarding poetry.

She's 22, I live in eternal hope.

Nope. She can join my lost cause gang.

Sorry, I can't see the point of poetry. To each his / her own.

I honestly cannot imagine my life without reading poetry or getting to the theatre to see Shakespeare as often as possible.

But like Silver, I have managed to produce kids for whom it is all "boring". It saddens me but they have their own interests and they may come around to the wealth of literature in time. I hope so.

Yanbu I just asked DD aged 9 if she did any poetry at school and she said no.

I do buy them collections of children's poetry....I suppose school have an agenda...but it's got me thinking. I might offer to do some recitation with the kids. I'm a trained actor and if they enjoyed it we could do some competitive stuff next year.

Jitney Please do offer. I love it when parents come forward to help enrich the curriculum. Unfortunately my author's child has now left and the teacher who has a poet friend. Most schools I know would jump at the chance (especially for free!).

Perhaps the teacher doesn't like CAD and doesn't want to spend an evening herding teenagers to sit through a reading. I love poetry, generally hate readings and don't particularly like Carol Ann Duffy (although most of the people I would like to see are dead!).

Roo you don't think the children would find it boring? My DD did a bit when she was about 5....but that was when she attended a prep and they entered them all in a competition which is held in our city yearly.

I thought a bit of reciting might be good for their confidence...but it's also the kind of thing best taught in small groups...I don't think I could manage more than about 6 a time for instance.

Jitney, I regularly do performance poetry with my class, so 30 at a time.

Good God Silver 30!! When DD did it in prep aged 5 the groups were teeny! How do you manage that? Do you get them to work in pairs a lot?

Do they do individual performances silver or as a whole? I'm looking at solos.

Pairs, groups, splitting segments and choral.
Deals with the EAL, SN and Divas and allows everyone access.

What's EAL

English as an Additional Language.
I love teaching poetry; performance, reading, writing and analysing.

Right...thanks for that Silver I think, given these are primary aged children I might focus on simple poetry and perhaps make it a trial thing for one term...it's only going to be an hour a week in all likelyhood....so I won't have much time...have you any suggestions for me at all? I'm keen to hear anything you can offer!

I'm an English literature graduate, have studied stacks of poetry (including Carol Anne Duffy, way back at school, I think for GCSE) and declined to buy a ticket to see her even when she was giving a presentation in my tiny home town about 30 seconds walk from the house because I absolutely can't stand her work.

I can't imagine the average GCSE student would be any more enthusiastic than I was and therefore support the teachers in not even attempting to arrange it.

I hate the thought of poetry being analysed.

That's not why it was written.

Somebody takes their innermost feelings and commits them to paper in a beautiful way, I think in the hope that it will at least be recorded and might touch someone else in the same way.

Not to be torn to bits, have the guts ripped out of it and subjected to 'and why do you think he wrote this particular line to rhyme with that particular line and used that particular word and what do you think it conveys?'

Isn't it enough just to be touched, amazed and moved by the poem? To feel the poets thoughts? To see it how they saw it? To feel its emotion?

Pulling it apart just kills it. I had many a beautiful piece of writing utterly spoiled for me at school. Just leave it alone to be enjoyed.

Analyse it with primary children, dramatising it, getting them to predict and suggest alternatives.
Joy in comprehending, not vivisection of a piece.

poetry is shit isnt it? Just words in a shape

The only time I've see Duffy live - with a group of students - she had the charisma of a loo roll innard. V disappointing. However, if she were performing near here there would be a 6th form trip running as we study her poetry and it would be worth going to see it performed (even tediously) by the author.

have to say not a fan of CAD either, tried to read a couple of hers once and judt didn't get it at-all! nor of analysing poetry either. sometimes adults like me have come late in life to it. and have some more down to earth tastes e.g Bukowski. also aren't some pop songs potetry-like, e.g. jarvis cocker's Common People?!

Poetry is a nightmare to teach.

CAD is not the best person to see perform - her diction is terrible, she calls poetry "perchy", which annoys me.
There are better, Wendy Cope is fab, and Simon Armitage, Jo Haslam to name a few.
We studied a lot of poetry at school and it instilled a love of poetry in me that I still have today.

I teach Poetry in Yr 4. Kids love it. In fact, it is taught every year throughout primary at our school.

They don't all love it. Some of them definitely don't see the point of it. And it gets really boring doing The Highwayman in Year 5 year after year.