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So, thank you very much for having me and thank you very much for being here at this

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time of the afternoon.

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I'm sorry about the photocopies, I'm sorry about the chairs, I'm sorry about everything.

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So, well, when I started writing my paper for this conference, I was certainly terrified

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and I thought to myself, what can I really say to my colleagues who have been teaching

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for so many years that they don't already know?

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I came to the conclusion, nothing much, that the only thing I could do was share my experiences

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with you all as a person who loves literature and the English language.

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I hope you enjoy my presentation, what I have to say, and give me some feedback, too.

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One of the characters in Carol Shields and Blanche Howard's A Celibate Season says,

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poetry is what distinguishes a man from his calculator.

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It is not that I have objections against calculations, but sometimes I tell myself that a simple

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20-word poem can transmit the same as a 200-page novel.

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When reading the advanced English curriculum, I shouted, at last, literature is given the

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importance it deserves in the English class.

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I've been teaching English-speaking literature at high school for 24 years, but most times

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it hasn't been easy.

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However, at the end of the year, after hard work and perseverance, everybody seems to

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understand that this is the essence of the English language itself.

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From the Canterbury Tales, through Jane Austen novels, to modern poetic experiments, students

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can appreciate how not only the language, but how social types of mentalities evolve.

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In my view, the fact that the study of English literature will be compulsory for 12-year-olds

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from the next year doesn't mean that the rest of the students at high school must be deprived

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of it.

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Literature is for all, even for less advanced pupils.

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Literature is like music you must read to understand.

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I think that rather than a theoretical dissertation about how poetry provokes insights in the

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audience, we must be practical.

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My aim in this paper is to encourage learners to appreciate English literature and to help

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them develop fluency skills in their second language.

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In the case of immigrants, it's the third.

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In order to do that, I'll show what I do in my classes.

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This year, I worked with 14- and 18-year-olds, with three contemporary American poets, such

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as the Southern Maya Angelou, the Midwesterner who became a Chicago denizen, Wendolyn Brooks,

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and the New Englander who turned into a New Yorker, E.E.

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Cummins.

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Let's concentrate on the more or less mayhem level.

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Mayhem does not mean inaccessible, and for that, we can't diminish the intensity according

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to the level of our students.

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My classes, I divide the subject into five skills, grammar and vocabulary, writing, reading,

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listening, and speaking.

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Through observation, assignment, and exams, all of them have a percentage in the final

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grade.

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There is not an ideal number of exams per term.

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Exams are horrible under any circumstances, but they've got to be done, especially because

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students must know what it is to be under pressure.

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They must understand that everything the teacher says is important, even though it is in English.

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English is as serious as mathematics or physics.

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History is multipurpose, but it takes time and patience, because nowadays, it just belongs

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to the academic arena.

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At high school, it's not only what the students can do in the classes, but what they do at

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home.

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Homework is not pernicious.

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A couple of periods per author each term would be fine, but you don't have to dedicate the

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whole class to literature.

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It is very recommendable to alternate, because other lessons can be taught if you deal with

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the same thing all the time.

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Poetry can be used for writing, speaking, and listening.

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In exams, you can make students write about a poet's biography, recite poems by heart,

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memorizing is not a crime against humanity, analyze their implications, have oral or written

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dissertations about the themes they deal with, and use them as listening exercises, fill

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in the blanks, make questions about them.

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Once in the 1960s, United States poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks defined her work as belonging

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to the African-American community, and following the example of the older writers of the Harlem

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Renaissance, she wrote about black experience and black rage.

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But let's listen to what Ms. Brooks said about We Real Cool, the first poem in your

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handouts, and the poem itself in the Guggenheim Museum on May the 3rd, 1983.

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Let's see.

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The sound is not very good.

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Oops.

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I guess I better offer you We Real Cool.

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Most young people know me only by that poem.

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I don't mean that I dislike it, but I would prefer it if the textbook compilers of the

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anthologists would assume that I've written a few other poems.

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I wrote it because I was passing by a pool hall in my community one afternoon during

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school time, and I saw therein a little bunch of boys, I'll say here in this poem, seven,

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and they were shooting poles.

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But instead of asking myself, why aren't they in school, I asked myself, I wonder how they

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feel about themselves.

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And perhaps they might have considered themselves contemptuous of the establishment, or at least

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they wanted to feel that they were contemptuous of the establishment.

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Might want to bum their noses at the establishment, and I represented the establishment for the

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month of June, which is a nice, gentle, non-controversial, enjoyable, pleasant, fragrant month that everybody

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loves.

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This poem has been banned here and there because of the word jazz, which some people have considered

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a factual reference.

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That was not my intention, so I had no objection if it helped anybody.

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But I was thinking of music.

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The pool players sat at the golden shoals.

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Went real coldly.

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Left the grueling.

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Worked with.

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Strut with.

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Strip with.

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Sing with.

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Sting with.

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Jazz with.

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Effort.

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Okay.

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So, Ms. Brooks' presentation is short, but significant enough.

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Now you can ask the students about what she said about her most famous poem, but it is

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recommendable to add something else and may then take notes for the exam or class exercises.

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In general terms, and very briefly, I can say that Ms. Brooks dedicates this poem to

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everyone who has ever played hooky.

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Imitating black English intonation, she emphasizes sound over description and pays a tribute

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to Chicago, the center of jazz and blues cultures.

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Vocabulary represents this land of big industrial cities.

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Such words as lark, thin, jazz strike, and of course, the reference to Walt Whitman in

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Wilson's Zen deserve special attention and we must encourage students to use their dictionaries,

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encyclopedias, or websites.

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Repetition in the poem means insecurity, but the absence of there to be in the first line

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asserts presence or identity to finally reach a surprise ending.

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Helen Jacobson points out that Missouri-born Maya Angelou is not just somebody, but the

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heroine of her stories and poetry who inspires self-determination.

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A singer, cinema director, magnificent orator, and personal friend of President Clinton's,

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Ms. Angelou's The Half-Boot Dinah is different from her other more serious poems in that

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it is a satirical reaction about what is accepted in polite society.

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Funny, dynamic, it reminds us of rap rhythms, but let's listen to the poem which is number

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two, the second, in your photocopies.

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The Half-Boot Dinah by Maya Angelou

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No sprouted wheat and soya shoots and brussels in a cake

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Carrot straw and spinach raw, today I need a steak

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Not thick brown rice and rice poulou or mushrooms creamed on toast

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Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed, I'm dreaming of a roast

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Health food folks around the world are thinned by anxious zeal

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They look for help in seafood kelp, I count on breaded veal

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No smoking signs, raw mustard greens, zucchini by the ton

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Uncooked kale and body spray are sure to make me run

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Loins of pork and chicken thighs and standing ribs so primed

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Pork chops brown and fresh ground round, I crave them all the time

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Irish stews and boiled corned beef and hot dogs by the stores

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Or any place that saves the space for smoking carnivores

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So the Half-Boot Dinah is an original reaction

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to the new wave of health-conscious haters and new-age nighters

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which reveals her aversion to health food and her preference

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for being a carnivore. Angelou is said to have written the poem

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when she was stopped from smoking in a public restaurant

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A good exercise for recitation, vocabulary and debate

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For and against this type of habit, social hypocrisy

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the teacher must make the students aware of the importance of

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playfulness in the poem, the voice of what is socially accepted

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and what most people really feel. I pitied my sweet

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Midlands conversation assistant as she is a true blue vegetarian

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So it's specialized vocabulary deserves many a written exercise

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You can see one of them in your handouts as well

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A dictionary here is a student's best friend and remember

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teachers are not walking dictionaries

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If Miss Angelou and Miss Brooks are very much sound poems

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Mr. Cummins, who died in 1962, are visual ones

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It is amazing how history repeats itself

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As the Italian writer Eugenio Scafari has just said

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in an interview for L'Espresso, we live a landmark

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from a civilization based on written words to one based on sounds and images

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Mr. Cummins' poetry is not for the ear but for the eye

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Perhaps students are not used to this kind of poetry

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The best solution to decipher Cummins' poems is to supply

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punctuation and capitalization as necessary

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to treat each stanza as a separate syntactic unit

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to sometimes add words to complete the sentence

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to rearrange words within the lines as needed

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and to pay attention to context, that's what the teacher is for

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Please don't be scared of numbers, black spaces, or Greek letters

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in Mr. Cummins' poems

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Miss Brooks, this time students are given a written biography

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You have it in your photocopies as well

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As homework, you must read it at home, translate it mentally, and learn it

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There is nothing wrong in using memory

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Just the contrary, it helps fix correct expressions and vocabulary forever

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and give confidence to pupils when they have to use them

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because they know they are correct

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The teacher will ask one question per person in the class concerning it

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Students must use long answers

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If one student doesn't know the answer, you can let the others raise their hands and call it out

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This is very motivating for them

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and you can also see who the most advanced students in the class are

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or the ones who are not able to answer because it is too hard for them

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because they don't understand the questions

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or because they are never, ever studying

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And of course, give them a grade for their speaking and listening exam

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The type of questions you can make range from

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Where was he born? What was his father's profession?

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Where did he live most of his life? Where did he spend his summer holidays?

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What did he recount in his first novel, The Enormous Room?

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What are his wife's names? How many children did he have?

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Why was he disappointed with the Soviet experiment?

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Why is Amy a tribute to individualism?

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What are the characteristics of his poetry?

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What are the themes he explores in his books of poems?

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Or what is the significance of comments among modern poets?

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Then you can comment a vocabulary in the test and expand it as far as you consider necessary

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creating a brainstorming effect

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You can ask your students to search, for example, poems

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and ask them to enumerate different types of literary works and research sources

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Plays, novels, essays, articles, interviews in newspapers

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on television, websites, songs, films

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Or you can take their shock or non-sociology

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for them to name other university degrees and subjects

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very important now with the new degrees

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Or you can insist on stat sheets interesting for their future studies

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at university for research papers and doctoral dissertations

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Italics for titles of books, encyclopedias

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journals, magazines, newspapers, television programs

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songs, films, and inverted commas for articles

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poems, chapters of books, or short stories

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Then you can deal with geography

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take a map of the United States and concentrate on New England

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or explain what the Ivy League universities are

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or even choose phonetics and rehearse the voice sound

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in such words as collectivism, individualism

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in contrast to the other sounds as homework

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taking commons biography into account

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or simply portions of them that you can also see in your handouts

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and answer the questions that you have after these poems

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So poetry can be irritating when meanings

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escape our understanding, but in the end we find that

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reading them has been a rewarding experience

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You will be surprised at how many questions your students make

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and the original ideas they suggest, no matter their age

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Actually, there is an interpretation of a poem per reader

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I hope that with these little suggestions

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these poems will give you ideas for exploiting others that you like

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By reading them, one is enfolded in the author's personalities

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personalities we both sometimes like to adopt

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ourselves, for it seems to resolve many of life's problems

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moral and otherwise

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As an original English teacher, I know poetry cannot

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replace structured work in any classroom

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but it has an important role to play alongside it

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because as my friend Dawn Nelson from Arizona State University

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puts out, poetry is as grammatical

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as prose is, the problem is that each poem

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has its own grammar. Thank you

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applause