Inquiring with Delight

1. Inquiring with Delight Reading and Teaching Poetry Louann Reid, Colorado State University Louann.Reid@colostate.edu

2. Tuning Up Note: after the conference I modified some slides so that the presentation and handouts would make sense. The new material has a light blue background. • “The Guitarist Tunes Up”(poem on cover of handout)

3. Goals for This Session • Reinforce the importance of teaching delight in poetry • Try out some activities for doing so • Share resources—your experiences • But first, a word from your presenter . . .

4. Colorado State—The Green University • Teach preservice teachers and inservice courses for practicing teachers • Co-author of textbooks for secondary school students • Previously taught secondary school English, public speaking, and drama for 19 years • Did my dissertation on the strategies year 10 students use to read and discuss poetry. • Working on a book for teachers on teaching visual texts.

5. View from Our House in Winter Louann Reid, Colorado State University, 2008

6. The Rocky Mountains in early summer

7. Hearing a New Song • Digi-Poems Contest 2007 (YouTube video of “Hinemoa’s Daughter”)

8. Activities • Juxtaposing the Texts • Bill Manhire: Every sequence you construct has consequences for meaning. • Get a Sense before Making Sense • Venn Diagrams • Imitations • Bill Manhire: Find your own voice as a writer by copying out the voices of others.

9. Get a Sense Before Making Sense • Listen to two readers read “if everything happens that can’t be done” by e. e. cummings • Give self an initial rating for understanding between 1 and 10 • Reread silently. Write two certainties and a question. • Form small groups to discuss certainties and questions. • Mark your understanding, again between 1 and 10. • Large group discusses remaining questions. • Large group debriefs activity: How could you use something like this in your classroom? In what ways does this allow students to “inquire with delight” as a way into poetry? How can this activity apply to Bill Manhire’s idea that “every sequence you construct has consequences for meaning”?

10. Juxtapositions and Imitations • We ran out of time, but the other three poems in the handout were to be used for a two-part activity. • All three poems were written in imitation of an “I Remember” poem. Ask groups of three to juxtapose the texts, that is, they should intersperse lines from each poem to create a “new” poem that speaks to them and represents their interpretations of the individual poems. • After groups perform, debrief by asking students to consider the experience. How did rhythm, line length, and so on play into their juxtaposition? Do they see anything wrong with breaking up poems this way? How did the new poems lend additional meaning to the originals? • Finally, if you have time and interest, ask students to write their own “I Remember” poem.

11. Principles of Teaching Poetry for Delight • Constructing knowledge is more powerful than merely receiving information. • Many students and teachers need to see that they can construct meaning in poetry rather than see it as a riddle with one answer. • Often it may be more important to “get a sense” before “making sense.”

12. Why Do We Need Poetry? • Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom, according to Robert Frost. • Similarly, N. Scott Momaday, a Native American poet and writer stresses the importance of imagination. He says that we cannot be who we are without it: “We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.” • Poetry allows us to imagine and re-imagine ourselves.

13. Coda • Shelley, A Defense of Poetry Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices whose voice forever craves fresh food.