A Poetry Lesson

ABSTRACT

What do we see when we observe an excellent English lesson? What’s going on in the room? Perhaps what stands out is a collaborative making of meanings inspired by stimulating texts. Perhaps what’s most important is an ever-deepening knowledge about, and facility with, the many ways that language works. Maybe what we’re seeing is a carefully sequenced preparation for future hurdles to be negotiated. Or a blend of all three. And perhaps, as this story suggests, there is more. Perhaps every English lesson is affected in all kinds of subtle and sometimes invisible ways by unconscious fears and desires and by half-remembered histories, the territory towards which a story – more easily than a piece of non-fiction – can gesture.

KEYWORDS:

• English
• poetry
• grammar
• classroom
• mythopoetics
• story
• Auden

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Auden’s poem is quoted on p. 113 in Bennett, A. (2014). Poetry in Motion. Faber & Faber. Bloomsbury House. London. poem on page 113. Copyright © 1936 by W.H. Auden, renewed. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steve Shann

Steve Shann is a retired English teacher, academic and writer, with a particular interest in mythopoetics and English teaching. He has written four books, the most recent being The Worlds of Harriet Henderson, a novel set in a secondary English classroom.

Mary Macken-Horarik

Mary Macken-Horarik is an adjunct Associate Professor at the Australian Catholic University. She is lead author of a recent publication entitled Functional Grammatics: Re-conceptualising knowledge about language and image for school English (Routledge).

CeCe Edwards

CeCe Edwards is a secondary English teacher and author. Job Interview, her story about identity, disclosure and English teaching, was published in English in Australia Vol 53 Issue 2 (2018)