Poets and Poems
Despite my major, I haven't had much instruction on poetry's metric and figurative facets. I have vague memories of lessons on iambic pentameter in my 9th grade English class but almost every course since, even college courses, has totally skipped the literary form. I think teachers and professors opt it out in place of essay writing and lessons on how to make a strong thesis. After learning more about poetry and writing it myself, I've realized how useful reading poetry is to one's ability to form interpretations and arguments from primary texts. With poetry, less is more and oftentimes interpretation is left to the reader. I'd argue that studying "an easy poem", one with narrative structure, can assist students in understanding elements such as plot, themes, and figurative devices. The short narrative structure of such poems usually leaves out certain details, like character, such elements can be interpreted by the students. This task can become an in-c...