[Rachael Stahr]

Yes, I do a lot of close reading skills. We spend a lot of time trying to just understand the poem. But spending so much time in defining and explaining seems to remove the JOY of poetry. And I may explain it and students really understand what’s going on in the poem – but they don’t seem any stronger at understanding the next poem we read! They are just as bewildered. I feel as though I need to enable them to just enjoy poetry while also allowing them to understand the poem – and neither is happening. (Perhaps this is the literature version of the cram-pass-forget cycle that I see in so many other cycles?)