Annoyed

Some of you will remember that I had presented a lesson on “Poetry for Enjoyment” when Prof. Beets came to critique me. The lesson served as a bridge between the movie “Dead Poets Society” and the Grade 11 Prepared Reading task, which made up their oral assignment for the term. After the D-day lesson, I presented this lesson to my Mentor’s other Gr.11 class to their surprised delight.It’s a fun lesson, carefully crafted to achieve the “unthinkable” – making poetry so much fun, that you’d want to delve into it at home, in your own time, and love it.Following my two presentations in my Mentor’s classes, she suggested that the other Gr.11 English teachers consider having me present this lesson after they’re classes have watched the movie. A suggestion which seems to’ve been received quite well, judging by the bookings I received. Of course I had to make room for these lessons in my L.O.-schedule, but I figured it was worth it for me, for the learners, and for the love of poetry!

Today saw me presenting this lesson to 11B, with both their teacher and the Department Head in the classroom. The light wasn’t ideal for the overhead projector, but the lesson went down without a hitch. The learners seemed to love it, and their teacher said how enjoyable he found it. The Department Head, whose classes are up tomorrow and the day after, was however not as enthusiastic about the poem I used at the end of my lesson to drive it all home. She asked that I change it to one of the Gr.12 EFAL poems she had on a DVD.

This is the poem I have been using all this while as an exercise in performing a reading:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpwAP36-w7E?si=X8fGGxRjUGePY040]

I’m sure you can imagine the hilarity (enjoyment) that ensued once learners were given the text to this poem and told they had two minutes to prepare a fun way of reading it, and then reading it in front of the whole class. Right there. (Yes, I’m incorrigible – with purpose.)

The plaintiff flat-out refused that part of the lesson.
These are the poems I’ve been asked to substitute it with:

Guy Butler – A Prayer for All My Countrymen
Roy Campbell – The Serf
John Donne – Death Be Not Proud
Charles Eglington – Cheetah
John Milton – On His Blindness
Oswald Mtshali – The birth of Shaka
William Shakespeare – Sonnet 116
Karl Shapiro – Auto Wreck
Stephen Spender – An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum
W.D. Snodgrass – Mementos, 1

WTF? Let’s switch out a light-hearted, nonsensical and funny little poem for something more… well, either high-browed convoluted-ness or death and misery. Great.

Of course these poems are all fantastic works of art – in the same way a Rembrandt is fantastic. They’re also just as much fun…

I’ll have to make a plan.