Exploring · Thu Feb 1, 08:49 by Eleri Straker
On Tuesdays I see my year 10 class twice in one day. With any other class this would probably be a chore, but with this group, it’s a real pleasure.
I’d made an agreement with them at the start of the year that in order to make this more interesting we would spend the second of our two lessons talking…or at least doing oral work. I’d told them a few weeks ago, that if they so chose, one individual each session would have the chance to do an impromptu talk, a stand-up or a rant. Anything they liked in fact.
Today, the lesson began with an incredibly impassioned rant by a very articulate fourteen-year-old against pornography and its degrading of men as well as women. I’ve taught this girl for two years but even I was impressed by her articulate argument.
Then we moved on to the main part of the lesson. I divided the class into small groups then gave each group a poem from their poetry anthologies to analyse. These were not poems that they had seen before and I wanted to see how much they could manage without my help.
There was no complaint, they simply got on with it. I wandered around listening to their discussions offering the occasional remark if I was asked. It was absolutely fascinating. There was no casual chat, every student was completely focused on the poetry. The comments varied from, “So Miss, we can’t decide if this woman Salome is a serial killer or a sex addict…the line about the sticky red sheets could mean either…” Or in response to a specific question, “If you take away someone’s title, then they lose part of their identity…is that why Havisham isn’t called ‘Miss’?” It was a real eye-opener. The buzz was amazing. They were really exploring poetry, throwing ideas at each other, questioning thoughts and really getting into the poems. They were doing it in a way that I recognised. It was the way that I teach. It was both gratifying and humbling.
The plan is that each group will report back to the rest of the class and I will fill in any gaps.
From what I overheard, the kids understood the ideas in the poems. (They also showed that they were intrinsically kind and generous in their thinking, as each student seemed to want to think the best of the different persona adopted in the poems, most of whom are actually psychopathic nutters!)
When each group has reported back to the class with their findings my job will be to complete their findings and make sure that they appreciate the poetic techniques used.
This was an experiment on my part. I wanted to see if what I’d taught them about analysis had worked.
It’s early days, but I think, (or hope!) it has.
