Reading and Responding to Poetry Patterns in the Process

Most students and just as many adults, if quizzed, would confess that they don't expect to understand a poem on their own, and rarely, if ever, choose to read one. In Reading and Responding to Poetry, Dias offers ways to counter these negative expectations and create a dynamic environment in which students can learn to appreciate poetryin their own ways. Dias recognizes the importance poetry can play in students' understanding of literature and in their overall education. He has developed strategies to help teachers encourage students to follow their own instincts when reading poetry. In part, these strategies demand that both students and teachers discard any preconceptions about poetry and the way it should be studied. Rather than focus only on written response, Dias has conducted extensive research on the value of oral response to poetry. Understanding can grow and deepen through "thinking aloud" about poems. Repeated readings and conversations with others help students articulate their responses. At the heart of this book is the understanding that students, on their own, will seek to make sense of the text in different ways. Dias divides adolescent readers of poetry into four loose categories: paraphrasers, thematisers, allegorizers, and problem solvers, each of which suggests distinct patterns of learning and responding. Teachers can maximize students' experiences by providing support keyed to the specific ways students respond to poetry. This book opens up a much-neglected area of curriculum-the teaching of poetry in the context of research on reader response. With its unique focus on the reading strategies of adolescents and its depiction of a program that takes these strategies into account, Reading and Responding to Poetry is essential to any teacher seeking to plant an enduring love of poetry in students' lives.Dias, Patrick X. is the author of 'Reading and Responding to Poetry Patterns in the Process' with ISBN 9780867093728 and ISBN 0867093722.