Pytash Chapter 5: Learning Poetry and Literary Terms

Jago begins chapter five with explaining how she teaches literary terms.  I prefer a slightly different approach.  With my freshman year of high school came the most influential English teacher I ever had.  In the first week of class he had the class memorize a list of literary terms and we had a quiz at the end of the week.  The terms I memorized when I was 14 have stuck with me these past seven years, and I am grateful that I had a teacher who pushed the class to remember terms. I plan on using the same method as him when I become a teacher, unlike Jago.  After memorizing these terms, the class could educationally converse and discuss literature and apply the terms to the stories: they did not just disappear, but enhanced our communication and analysis of literature.  Adding to the term quiz, I will take Jago's suggestion of creating a word wall (one small poster for each term) to reinforce the terms as we learn and and apply them.
   When studying poems, especially, I like Jagos' idea of identifying imagery in the poems as a class, read on page 90.  It seems that above all literature, students complain about poems the most, and it is perhaps because students have the most difficult time understanding and relating to them.  By discussing imagery, and even emotions conveyed in the text, students can begin to understand and relate to the literature.  A final project idea could be some sort of study on one poet students choose from a list, where they select one poem (not one analyzed in class) and review it, along with a brief background of the author.  I loved Edgar Allen Poe in high school (and still do) and would have loved a project that gave me the opportunity to explore more of his work.  By doing a project like this would give students the opportunity to have some choice in what they study, and perhaps take interest in a canonical poet or poem.