I want to share a poetry conversation with you!

Hi Karena,

This is Wanjing. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. I hope you are doing well!

Do you still remember that we had both struggled with reading poetry before? Last week I went
to a party and I listened to a very informative conversation about poetry. It was an academic
conversation by a group of professors. They talked about teaching poetry for different levels of
education and they each shared their strategies and findings on teaching poetry. I have learned
a lot about poetry from this conversation. Let me know if you want to hear more details about
this conversation!

Best,
Wanjing

Hi Wanjing,

I hope you are well too!

I agree with you that reading poetry was challenging. I remember that I always had to read the
poems multiple times in order to fully understand them.This conversation sounds interesting and
I would like to hear more details!

Thanks,
Karena
Hi Karena,

I’m glad to hear that you are interested in this conversation. Your way of reading the poems
multiple times is actually mentioned in this conversation. I will explain it more in detail.

Charles A. Elster is a professor at Purdue University and David I. Hanauer is a professor at the
Indiana University of Pennsylvania. They started the conversation by talking about a study they
conducted which systematically documents how teachers share poems with children in
elementary school classrooms. They shared the result that elementary school teachers typically
use “an expressive reading style, immediate rereading of the poems, and prompting children to
read along or act out the poems” (Elster and Hanauer 104).

Another professor Sandra Lee Tompkins agreed with them on their findings of rereading the
poems. She introduced her strategy of teaching poetry which also involves repeated reading
and multiple interpretations of the poems --- the reader-response theory. She suggested this
theory because readers can develop multiple interpretations, self-corrective changes, or
additional insights through this process. Students may construct their own understanding of
poetry through such a recursive and cumulative process (Tompkins 317).

I am glad that you brought up that you also read the poems multiple times because it is
definitely one effective strategy. What do you think about this conversation so far? Would you
like to hear more about other professor’s opinions?

Best,
Wanjing

Hi Wanjing,

I am happy to hear that my strategy was mentioned. Do other professors hold different
opinions? I would like to hear more about this conversation!

Best,
Karena
Hi Karena

Yes, some professors held different opinions. For example, Bernarr Folta, an English Consultant
at West Lafayette Community School Corporation, raised the question that repeated reading
may not be enough for students entering the next level of education. Instead, he argued that
one of the basic skills of critical readers of poetry is the interpretation of poetic elements as
metaphoric events. Folta shared his study on the effectiveness of three different instructional
support for sixth-grade children in interpreting metaphor in poetry. He suggested that students
would learn more in class with internal or external support through the poets and media than in
class with regular classroom teachers (Folta 149). He also gave examples of how poets and
regular teachers give instructions. For example, when discussing figures of speech, regular
teachers would give the definitions first while poets used activities that allow students to acquire
definitions through experiences.

Just about Folta was going to expand more in detail, a totally different voice came from
Professor Paul Allen. He suggested that too much on teaching poetry terminology, convention,
and critical analysis may not be necessary. He said that because of this, “we gain some English
majors but poetry loses her lovers” (Allen 81). He argued that teaching students to write logical
papers analyzing poetry is to “disabuse students of what poetry is and to kill the essential quality
of poetry, which is its magic” (Allen 82). Instead, he recommended instructors choose poems
that they like or they think the students will like.

From a student’s perspective, I agree with Professor Allen’s opinion because I don’t like
analyzing poems and I hope to read something interesting. What do you think about his
suggestion?

Best,
Wanjing

Hi, Wanjing

Although I don’t like analyzing poems either, I would say poetry terminology, convention, and
critical analysis is still important. Do all other professors agree with Allen’s opinion? I am excited
to learn more about it!

Best,
Karena
Hi, Karena

You are right. Such a new opinion did not seem to be favored by other professors. Tom C.
Hunley, a professor of English at Western Kentucky University, disagrees with Allen because he
stated that students will need those strategies in undergraduate poetry writing classes. Hunley
also criticized the traditional workshop model of teaching undergraduate poetry writing because
it “fails to take creative writing instruction seriously, and it does not take students seriously”
(Hunley 64). Students in such workshops “often lack the terminology needed to critique each
other's writing intelligently” (Hunley 67). Professor Hunley believed that students should receive
training on poetry conventions and know how to accurately critique poems written by their
peers.

Finally, Patrick Bahls, a professor at the University of North Carolina, also argued against Allen.
He provided a different perspective of using poetry to teach mathematics. He shared the results
of his study that many of his students found that poetry is a useful tool to understand abstract
mathematical concepts. Writing poetry is just like writing a well-constructed math proof since the
language should be precise and word choice is important. Hence he believed that
understanding poetry conventions is necessary (Bahls 82).

Although this conversation involves voices from different perspectives and professors may
disagree with each other, it was a respectful communication with everyone sharing and listening
to each other’s ideas. I hope you will enjoy this conversation. Let me know if you have any
questions!

Best,

Wanjing

Hi Wanjing,

Thanks for sharing! This is such an informative conversation. What do you think about this
conversation? I would also like to hear your opinions!

Best,
Karena
Hi Karena,

I enjoyed this conversation because it gives me lots of insights into understanding poetry and its
benefits. Although other professors did not seem to agree with Professor Allen, from a student’s
perspective I do like his statement that “we gain some English majors but poetry loses her
lovers’’ because this was exactly my feeling back in high school English class (Allen 81). On the
other hand, I also agree with Professors Hunley and Bahls after hearing their opinions because
learning poetry convention is indeed helpful in other circumstances.

I am also really interested in Bahls’ suggestions of using poetry to teach mathematics. I would
also like to know if mathematics will be a useful tool for teaching poetry and if there are
connections between poetry and other disciplines. I have also attached some articles written by
these professors if you are interested in further reading. I will be glad to discuss it with you next
time!

Best,
Wanjing
 Work Cited

Allen, Paul. “‘Something beyond meaning’: The poet’s problem in freshman composition.”

Writing on the Edge, vol. 13, no. 1, 2002, pp. 79-90. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/43158794.

Bahls, Patrick. “Math and Metaphor: Using Poetry to Teach College Mathematics.” The WAC

Journal, vol. 20, no. 1, 2009, pp. 75–90., doi:10.37514/wac-j.2009.20.1.06.

Elster, Charles A., David I. Hanauer. “Voicing texts, voices around texts: ‘Reading poems in

elementary school classrooms.’” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 37, no. 1,

2002, pp. 89-134. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40171594.

Folta, Bernarr. “Effects of three approaches to teaching poetry to sixth grade students.” Research

in the Teaching of English, vol. 15, no. 2, 1981, pp. 149-162. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/40170922.

Hunley, Tom C. “It Doesn't Work For Me: A Critique of the Workshop Approach to Teaching

Poetry Writing and a Suggestion for Revision.” Writing on the Edge, vol. 13, no. 1, 2002,

pp. 59-77. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43158792.

Tompkins, Sandra Lee. “How does a reader make a poem meaningful? Reader-response theory

and the poetry portfolio.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 24, no. 4,

1997, pp. 317-325. ProQuest, https://www-proquest-

com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:9443/scholarly-journals/how-does-reader-make-poem-

meaningful-response/docview/220956587/se-2?accountid=14522.