How to teach: English - Chris Curtis 2019

Stripped back poems and layering
How to teach poetry

How you introduce a poem can be important. An emphasis on engagement can neglect the fact that there is such a thing as intellectual engagement. Such an emphasis has meant I’ve seen poems introduced with chocolates and with shocking videos featuring even more shocking acting from the teacher. But not everything needs a stimulus.

Engagement is a funny thing. I could sit in a meeting looking like I am being bored to tears, but actually I am deep in contemplation. On the outside, I might look like I’d rather be anywhere else. On the inside, I’m thinking of solutions to the age-old problem of whether Year 11 should go on study leave or not. You’d be hard pushed to tell whether I am engaged unless you speak to me. Young children are transparent with their levels of engagement but, as they turn into teenagers, this becomes visibly less apparent. You can’t always tell if a student is engaged fully or not. Teenagers often keep their thoughts to themselves and hide any signs of enjoyment.

It is always interesting to learn what students enjoy (or not) over the course of the year. You only know this when you talk to them. Imagine every student is showing you their ’poker face’; they won’t show you their ’tell’, so you’ll need to dig deeper. True intellectual engagement is not visible, though questions and comments might indicate it. For this reason, I think we need to be cautious about ’false engagement’. The five hours you spent creating an albatross from toilet roll for your mimed version of ’The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ could be replaced with five seconds at the photocopier and presenting the text to the students. Engage their brains first and the excitement, fun and joy will be the result of their thinking.

Approach 1 — the highlights

When introducing a poem for the first time, what you present to the students is important. Give them the complete text of Tennyson’s ’In Memoriam’ or Coleridge’s ’The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and you can imagine the fear and trepidation they feel. As with wine, you sometimes have to decant a poem and let it breathe. Some, however, are more like vodka shots and best ingested quickly.

Take this poem by Rudyard Kipling. It explores the treatment of old soldiers by various parts of society. Here I have presented some highlights from the poem: a few select lines placed in the order that they appear.

Tommy

[1] I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,

The publican ’e up an’ sez,“We serve no red-coats here.”

[2] I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They gave a drunk civilian room, but ’adn’t none for me;

[3] You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:

We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

[4] An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;

An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!⁹

Having two daughters myself and years of teaching other people’s children under my belt, I am aware of how popular culture is engineered to grab young people’s attention. In the modern age, we have to work harder to get students to notice things. That means blocking out some channels. Over the years, I have watched students analyse texts and they are often drawn to the most obvious parts: the beginning and the end. But there’s meaning in every word, line and verse, so reading parts in isolation helps students to see this clearly.

If we look at the first line of ’Tommy’, we see the context of the poem. A solider is refused a drink in a pub. We see that the poem is told from his perspective. We also infer that he lacks education because he has an informal way of speaking. When we look at the second section, we see how he is shunned by people in a theatre. The fact that a ’drunk civilian’ is allowed entry highlights the ridiculous nature of the way he is treated. The last section contrasts the promises he was given with Tommy’s view of the reality of the situation.

Looking at a poem in a compartmentalised way helps to build those concrete ideas. It gives students a firm base from which they can explore the poem in greater depth. You can, and there is no problem with it, give students the full poem and get them to analyse it. But this approach helps to structure the reading in a way that secures a clear understanding of the key ideas without students being swamped by swathes of text that needs decoding. It’s similar to the Reader’s Digest¹⁰ approach to books: a condensed and reduced version of the text that allows for ease and speed, without removing the key ideas. For us, this approach allows students to get to the heart of the poem and then allows them to develop that understanding when faced with the full text.

The full poem is here:

Tommy

I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,

The publican ’e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”

The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;

But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,

They gave a drunk civilian room, but ’adn’t none for me;

They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,

But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;

But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,

The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,

O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;

An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit

Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ’ow’s yer soul?”

But it’s “Thin red line of ’eroes” when the drums begin to roll,

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it’s “Thin red line of ’eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind”,

But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind,

There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,

O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:

We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”

But it’s “Saviour of ’is country” when the guns begin to shoot;

An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;

An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!¹¹

Of course, I would then look at the poem in more detail. Having made the starting point clear, I then get students to see what is added in the rest of the text. How does it link? Does the text support, build on, challenge or contradict what has been revealed already?

Approach 2 — methodical reading

By the time students get to secondary school, a lot of assumptions are made about their reading skills. We automatically assume that they will be able to read. This approach — methodical reading — is one I use to help students, and it combats something that a lot of teachers are guilty of doing: neglecting gaps in understanding. All too often, we tell students to focus on the ’gist’ of a text and not to worry about the bits they don’t understand. We gloss over the problem areas and hope that through osmosis, symbiosis or something else ending in ’osis’¹² the student gets the poem. This approach combats that and it reflects the way I tend to approach all texts, and I’ve done this little experiment with hundreds of English teachers. Take the poem below and annotate it, as you normally would (unless this is a library book).

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His antient¹³, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides: above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumber’d and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages and will lie

Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.¹⁴

I have seen many different types of analysis, including some pretty bizarre ones. The way we annotate a text reveals something about how we read. There are a few common approaches:

✵ line by line

✵ spotting techniques

✵ questioning

They are all acceptable processes for what is essentially decoding a text. And, they are all fine for mature, sophisticated readers like yourself. The line-by-line method suggests that the reader is meticulous and mechanical and possibly doesn’t see the whole text but instead a puzzle to unlock. They might stop reading when they are faced with a bit they don’t get. The spotting techniques method reveals a focus on the immediate features, which can fail to engage with the content, ideas and meaning of a text. This reader will be great at noting points about a text but will fail to develop these. The questioning method shows engagement with the ideas. I often walk around during a mock exam to see how students engage with a text, and I look at the papers afterwards. Their annotations tell us so much. How close they are. And how far away.

We have to explicitly model how to read, yet there isn’t a uniform process for reading a poem. Children go from one teacher to another, adopting their way, or cobble something together themselves. You can see how this has the potential to cause confusion. In my current school we follow a standardised methodology for reading a text.

1 Spot things we don’t understand (words, lines, phrases).

2 Summarise what the text is about. Then answer the following questions.

3 What is the purpose of the text? For poetry, we’d rephrase it to: what is the message of the poem?

4 What is the reader supposed to think and feel?

5 What is interesting about the language choices made by the writer?

6 What connections are there between parts of the text? What else does this connect to outside the lesson?

For me, this method has been transformational. Because students are starting from a point of inexperience, it is easier for them to begin with what they don’t understand than what they do. The number of hands that go up when I ask a class what they don’t understand about a poem far outweighs the number when I pose the antithetical question. You create a shared exploration with the first question: we are working this thing out together. At this point you can also assess understanding and clarify meaning. Occasionally, something challenges your assumptions. I had one student struggle with the word ’trial’, something that I would have assumed they’d know. They weren’t familiar with it. We can’t start the reading by assuming we know where the gaps in knowledge are. The other beauty of this approach is that it takes little preparation. You just need a copy of the poem on a sheet of paper or a PowerPoint slide.

Approach 3 — mystery

’There’s been a … murdah! I mean murder.’ That’s how I introduce Robert Browning’s poem ’Porphyria’s Lover’. I reveal the poem one section at a time, asking students to tell me what happened, who has been murdered and why.

[1] The rain set early in to-night,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

During the whole set-up, we return to the question of the murder. Who is victim? What is the motive? I add extra questions as we go along and I also get students to ask questions themselves. There’s nothing like a murder mystery to get the grey cells working.

✵ Why is the environment perfect for a murder?

✵ Who do you think the narrator is?

Students often pick up on the aggression and the negativity of the environment. Then we explore concepts such as foreshadowing and pathetic fallacy. We might even explore how the pathetic fallacy links with the narrator’s ’heart’. One ghoulish student usually makes the point that in this weather nobody can hear you scream, so a murderer could easily get away with their crime.

[2] When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

✵ Who is the murderer?

✵ Who is the victim?

✵ How does the poet build up the tension here?

✵ What aren’t we seeing at the moment?

[3] And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me—she

Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me forever.

✵ Why does the narrator remain silent?

✵ What is the relationship between the two people? Is it an equal relationship?

[4] But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While I debated what to do.

✵ Why does the narrator’s heart swell?

✵ What is the narrator ’debating’? Why is he undecided?

[5] That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

✵ Why strangle her? Why not kill her by another method?

✵ Why is it important she felt ’no pain’?

At this point, you usually get a mixture of surprise and disbelief as students try to work out if it is possible for someone to be strangled with their own hair. And you get one or two students looking at the girl with the longest hair with a longing expression.

[6] As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

I propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!

✵ Why is it so important that her eyes were ’without a stain’?

✵ Why does he kiss her now and not before?

[7] Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!¹⁵

✵ What is the narrator’s motive for killing her?

✵ Why do you think ’God has not said a word!’?

The poem is dark, but proves how a mystery really gets students engaged. After working through the poem, we then look back to see which clues indicate that there was something wrong and how the situation developed. This approach leads to some very precise analysis to ascertain meaning. There’s no need to draw attention to specific words as the text itself, and the mystery element, draws students to look closer. They might make inferences about the fact that she never says hello when she enters, or they might look at more subtle word choices. The dramatic monologue allows for a shift in focus: in the first half, the students are trying to work out what is going to happen, and in the second half, work out why it happened.

Approach 4 — Scanning a poem

To explain the process to students, I use a hospital analogy: a range of technical scans can be used by doctors to identify a problem (CT, MRI, X-ray) and each scan records a specific structure within the body. If you want to look at bones, you would X-ray the body. If you want to look at the brain, you would use an MRI scan. I apply that level of scan to poetry. We scan a poem with a particular focus. All you need is a copy of the poem on an A3 sheet of paper and some pens. As with approach 2, students methodically analyse the text, usually working in pairs or groups, annotating it using a series of questions. For the student with a pencil case full of coloured pens this is a joy because for each layer they can use a different colour. The idea is, again, to then bring the different components of the students’ understanding together. I give them five minutes for each layer. At the start, I give students the question we are going to answer. Something like: how does the writer convey loneliness in the poem?

Layer 1: looking at how the poem is written

✵ What do you notice about how it is written?

✵ What is the most effective word?

✵ What patterns do you notice in the words?

✵ What is repeated?

✵ How is it presented on the page?

Layer 2: reacting to the poem

✵ What feelings do you have when you read the poem?

✵ Where in the poem do your feelings change?

✵ Do your feelings differ at the start and end?

✵ What questions does the poem raise?

Layer 3: surface meaning

✵ What is the poem about?

✵ Who is speaking?

✵ What different ideas does the voice have of the subject?

Layer 4: deeper meaning

✵ What is the poem teaching us?

✵ What is the writer trying to get us to see/understand/realise?

When the students have completed all the different layers they make connections between them. The important thing, for me, is the connection between the meaning and the language, as this is the hard part to get students to see. In this approach, they join meaning to feelings to linguistic and structural choices.