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Are We Teaching Poetry the Wrong Way?

In this essay on the use of poetry in teaching and communication, the student considers the impact of venue and context. The student explains that how the poem is introduced will influence audience understanding and gives the example of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" as a text that has acquired a classroom-specific misinterpretation, a problem of "using" rather than "studying" poetry. The student also considers "He fumbles at your Soul" by Emily Dickinson and Shel Silverstein's "Listen to the Mustn'ts."
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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

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This essay received a B by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.

More essays like this:

Not sure what I'd do without @Kibin
- Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University
Exactly what I needed.
- Jenna Kraig, student @ UCLA
Wow. Most helpful essay resource ever!
- Chris Stochs, student @ UC Berkeley

View other essays like this one:

Bridget's feedback:

"This is a perceptive essay with a lot of strengths. It's clear to the reader you have a good sense for incorporating your research, building up argumentation, and engaging in conversation with texts and ideas. I think the somewhat elongated opening can be tightened up: note that the word "Poetry" doesn't appear until more than halfway through the introductory paragraph. If you want to take your time leading to that, I would still recommend some kind of more obvious visual signposting; for example, maybe start a new paragraph at "Poetry faces these problems...", which will give "Poetry" the first word as the essay's main intention comes into focus.

On a related note, if we take the introduction and conclusion, they don't currently work as a coherent set of bookends. Can you tweak the language in each and create more parallels so the reader understands the project going in and coming out of the reading experience?

I wonder if quoting Dickinson at length is needed; this brings me to my other point: based on the information in the works cited, you won't be using "qtd. in" for the poem excerpts. Check against your style guide; you would do so if you are quoting Meyer quoting the poem (e.g., in commentary), but if this is the case, it's better to hunt down the original source. Also regarding quotations, it is good to see that you've worked the quotations into your own text to show control of the material. I see this is often done with semicolons--check over those and consider if a colon would be more appropriate."

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