Rationale
For most of us, reading poetry is not something that comes easily. We tend to alternate between two different experiences while reading:
- We say, “Wow. That poem only took 30 seconds to read. Woot!” And we move on to the next one. Within 10 minutes we’ve read the whole assignment and feel pretty good about the choices we’ve made in classes.
- We say, “What on earth was that poem about? Why can’t she just say what she means? Wait: what if she did? Am I just stupid? Where’s my decoder ring? GAH!” Then we feel bad, proceed to rinse and repeat for 3 hours, and come to class a triple-decker hot fudge sundae of self-doubt and poetry-loathing.
This assignment hopes to short-circuit the first and give us all strategies and opportunities to talk ourselves down from the second. After all, I’m living proof that people can learn to read poetry more effectively. Can I get another witness?
Nitty Gritty
For each day that we are reading Duffy’s poetry in class, you will be responsible for leading a short, 5-minute discussion on a single poem. This does not mean that you need to become an expert on that poem or that you will need to understand every bit of it. Rather, you will come up with a few questions that you believe can guide our conversation about that particular poem.
Claim a Poem
To ensure that we do not have overlap, you will claim a poem for each day’s discussion. Stake your claim by going to the Daily Poetry Discussion post and editing that post to add your poem title after your name on the day’s discussion. You can grab your poem as early as you’d like, but no later than 9 am on the day of class.
Please note again that you do not need to choose a poem that you think you understand (although that’s certainly an option). You can do just as well on this assignment if you choose a poem that has left you baffled. In a way, you’re acting as a curator who has decided that a particular poem in the volume must be talked about in class, even if you only want to force the rest of us to talk about it.
Prep a Poem
Prepare to lead the short discussion on your poem by composing a few questions. These questions can cover any aspect of the poem, including its relation to the poems that surround it or to the volume as a whole. Remember that good discussion questions normally cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no.” Try for questions that begin with “What,” “Why,” or “How.”
The key word in the preceding paragraph is “prepare.” “Preparing” means that you’ve thought of your two or three questions before coming to class. You may very well want to jot them down, perhaps even in the margins of your book. I don’t anticipate asking you to turn these questions in, but that remains an option if I think it becomes necessary.
Discuss a Poem
In class, you will lead a short discussion about your poem. You will have the reins of the class for a minimum of five minutes. You might start by talking about why you picked the poem that you did or you might launch right into a question.
Five minutes might sound like a long time. But honestly, one good question can easily put you beyond that mark.
Please note this central strategy of pedagogy: a good discussion normally features more talking from the class than from the teacher. This means, again, that you really do not need to know everything about the poem. You just need to be able to ask a question or three that will get us talking productively.
Grading
Each day’s discussion is worth a maximum of 5 points, with the assignment as a whole being worth 50 points. You will be graded on
- your timeliness in claiming your poem for discussion
- the quality of your questions
- your work leading the class
Credits
This is a new assignment, designed in Winter 2019. It draws on what I’ve learned teaching poetry over the last 15 years, as well as my own experiences in poetry classes. I’m always thankful for Sarah Aloe Peterson, who really helped me through teaching my first all-poetry class.
