POETRY IN EDUCATION

Poetry in education
To be or not to be, that is the question may be one of the most famous lines in
poetry until this day. Of course, as many of us know, this line was written by William
Shakespeare in his play, Hamlet. Growing up, as children, teenagers and even as
adults, we have always had poetry in our lives. Can you imagine the students now and
of the future going through school without any kind of poetry? I know I cant. Poetry is so
important in our lives, as well as childrens lives, even if we do not realize it. In the
following paper, I will discuss how poetry can help open doors for performances in
classrooms, poetry promotes repeated reading which helps students succeed, and
helps improves students' literacy.
When reading a piece of poetry, there are so many aspects to it. Of course, a
poem can be seen as a paper with a bunch of words, but when we read those words,
we not only get the meaning of the specific piece of work, but there is a rhythm and
rhyme that is easy to identify, even to children. A magical aspect to poetry is that, most
of the time, there is room for more than one interpretation of the meaning. This is what
helps open doors for performances. By doing performances with a classroom, the
performances are getting all the students involved, letting the students imagination run,
and having interaction with the entire classroom. While doing a play, each child can
have their own place, whether its being a part of the lighting team, costumes, writing,
directing, acting or props, each child will have something to do. With each of the
students doing something, the input allows the children to interpret the poem into a play,
the way they see the poem, along with their classmates ideas about the interpretation of
the poem. Sizmur (2008), mentioned that if exposed to alliteration, rhythm, rhyme, and

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repetition, pupils will develop tools for reading and communicating, in general. Reading
poems in a classroom and possibly doing performances, exposes children to alliteration,
rhythm, rhyme, and repetition.
Poetry can be used in many other ways. Other than performances,
one way to use poetry in a classroom is through repeated reading. Repeated reading is
when students read a particular passage daily , for example, over several days.
Repetition is very essential to students while learning and repeated reading can only
help more. Faver (2008), touched upon the fact that repeated reading has been proven
to be beneficial to students in more than one study. In order to promote repeated
reading in the classroom, we can start off by choosing a poem, and having students
read it to the class. After that, they can discuss their interpretation of the poem in
groups, so they can see how differently everyone thinks and interprets the same piece
of work. The next day, we can reread it and discuss it as a class. Repeated reading can
be essential to students learning and we can use poetry to help incorporate this.
When it comes to literacy, many children may have a problem with learning. I
believe poetry may help children understand literacy. Hughes (2007) mentions that the
kind of attention paid to the language and rhymes of a poem, serves to expand oral and
written vocabulary. By promoting poetry in the classroom, children may find it easier to
learn to read or write. Poetry has so many aspects to it such as rhythm, rhymes, and
alliteration that may help students become better readers and communicators.
Overall, I believe that poetry should be incorporated into a classroom because it
can help a student with communication, and help a teacher understand students in so
many ways. Depending on how a piece of poetry is presented to a class, it can help

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students gain more confidence, become better at reading and writing, and become
better at interpreting pieces of writing. Repeated reading, and performances are just a
few of many ways that educators can promote poetry in a classroom.

References
Faver, S. (2008). Repeated reading of poetry can influence fluency. Reading Teacher,
62(4), 350-352.
Hughes, J. (2007). Poetry: A powerful medium for literacy and technology development.
The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, 27-29.
Sizmur, J. (2008). Attitudes to reading survey - Rhyme or reason? Literacy Today, 57,

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29-31.