Learning to Understand Poetry

Helping High-School Students Appreciate Literature in Verse

Oct 14, 2008

High-school students are often intimidated by poetry. Often, their dislike is the result of a lack of knowledge. Many students simply don't know how to handle poetry.

However, students can, with little difficulty, begin to appreciate poetry. They simply need to be taught the basic structures and techniques that underlie this form of literature.

Structure

Begin by showing the student the overarching structure of the poem. Most poems are separated into stanzas. Many students may not even understand the concept of a stanza, so this is a great place to begin. Introduce a stanza as a group of lines connected in some way, normally by rhyme scheme or theme.

Rhythm

Next, help your student to understand the poem’s rhythm. Most English poetry is written in iambic pentameter. Iambic rhythm consists of a short syllable followed by a long syllable. Pentameter simply means that there are five iambs per line. The first line in William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 provides a wonderful example of iambic pentameter: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

In this sentence, the emphasis is on the second, fourth, sixth, eight, and tenth syllables while the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth syllables are unaccented. The same pattern is utilized for the rest of the poem.

Rhyme Scheme

It is also important to teach high-school students to interpret rhyme scheme. Although not all poems utilize rhyming lines, many, especially those of the Elizabethan and Restoration period, do. Students need to be taught to associate a letter to each individual line-end sound. The rhyme scheme of Sonnet 18, for instance, can be described as abab cdcd efef gg.

Even poems whose line endings do not rhyme utilize other sorts of rhymes, such as alliteration and onomatopoeia. Students should be taught to appreciate the sounds created by such rhyme within a poem’s lines. These sounds provide the poem with continuity and often reflect the mood or theme of the poem.

Techniques to Understand Message

Teach your student to recognize the methods by which a poem’s message is conveyed. Metaphor and simile are terms easily understood. Most students will quickly be able to recognize these within a poem. Personification is another commonly used technique in poetry. As your students learn to recognize these techniques at work, they will quickly begin to enjoy, or at least understand, poetry.

Poetry does not have to be painful. It can be taught in an enjoyable way. Students will learn to love this timeless form of literature once they are able to grasp its basic workings. One helpful resource for poetry is Poetry.org. Once students know what to search for in a poem, they will begin to truly appreciate the beauty contained in its lines.

Arp, Thomas P. and Greg Johnson. Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. 11th ed. Thomson and Wadsworth, 2005.

Mabillard, Amanda. "Sonnet 18." Shakespeare Online. 2000. (14/10/08). Website: Shakespeare Online.

The copyright of the article Learning to Understand Poetry in High School Curriculum is owned by Emily Adams. Permission to republish Learning to Understand Poetry in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.