On the Other Hand

On the other hand, even though the poetry “bookmark” idea helped several students in the class, not all students were able to meet learning goals with the techniques given to them. I met with one student who was having a particularly difficult time with decoding poetry, and subsequently, was also unsuccessfully completing activities or assignments in the unit. I asked her what I could do to help and if there were any techniques that we discussed so far in the unit that has given her any help at all with decoding poetry. She explained to me she had difficulty understanding the poem “Lady of Shalott” and figuring out what action was taking place in the ballad. She also commented on the technique of “being aware of punctuation” that had helped her in other poems, but she was having difficulty using it effectively with this particular poem.

Having students be aware of punctuation while reading poetry, accesses their schema associated with prose, allowing them the structure of treating the verses like sentences. Punctuation aids in the understanding of where one idea begins and where it ends in the poem, which is usually marked by an enjambment or caesura. I asked the student to try a different approach to dissect Tennyson’s Victorian ballad; when she is reading the piece, rewrite the ballad on a piece of paper as if you are writing it in prose. This way she would be able to physically see the separation of ideas and action in the piece, and hopefully, the visual would help her adjust her decoding skills to suit her individual learning preference or style.

The following day, the student approached me again and said that the techniques I suggested helped her but she was still having difficulty with some of the ballad’s transition in action. After surveying the class, it was apparent that there were a few students who were having difficulty understanding and interpreting the poem for its themes, plot, and symbolic values. After reflecting on what approaches I had used so far in adding student to comprehend the material, I tried the last approach I could think of, drawing.

Adhering to the multiple intelligence theory, I assigned a stanza to each student in the class. Their task was to illustrate their stanza as if they were a movie director. They could choose what angle to draw from, how they would arrange the illustration as well as what appropriate colors to use. They were required to write their stanza in their illustration, color it, and fill the blank sheet given