Names and their meanings: teaching cultural geography with the poem the names of migrant workers

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a new teaching method, poetry, into the geography classroom, accompanied by an out-of-class discussion on a blog, and finds that its effects are rather different from those of traditional teaching methods, as it allows new perspectives on instructional content related to migrant workers’ lives and identities in China. The method enables students to analyse content from the perspective of cultural geography, in which poetry acts as an art form that connects people’s identities and social spaces. On the basis of this, we also provide some suggestions to engage students in critical analysis of poetry, from the perspective of cultural geography, through interactive online platforms such as blogs.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural geography
• social space
• identity
• poetry
• blog

Acknowledgments

The insightful and constructive comments from the editors and reviewers are appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is sponsored by Peak Discipline Construction Project of Education at East China Normal University and National Natural Science Foundation of China [41571138, 41871143,41471135], and “Dawn” Program of Shanghai Education Commission [17SG27].