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Mesa de comunicación: Contemporary Poetry: A Way to English in the Classroom

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Subido el 13 de enero de 2011 por EducaMadrid

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Mesa de comunicación "Contemporary Poetry: A Way to English in the Classroom" por Dª.Teresa González Mínguez, celebrado en el I Congreso Internacional sobre Bilingüismo en Centros Educativos el 14 de junio de 2010 dirigido a profesores de primaria, secundaria y universidades, a investigadores y responsables políticos interesados en la educación bilingüe y en metodología AICOLE (Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos y Lengua)

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So, thank you very much for having me and thank you very much for being here at this 00:00:00
time of the afternoon. 00:00:16
I'm sorry about the photocopies, I'm sorry about the chairs, I'm sorry about everything. 00:00:18
So, well, when I started writing my paper for this conference, I was certainly terrified 00:00:24
and I thought to myself, what can I really say to my colleagues who have been teaching 00:00:30
for so many years that they don't already know? 00:00:35
I came to the conclusion, nothing much, that the only thing I could do was share my experiences 00:00:39
with you all as a person who loves literature and the English language. 00:00:45
I hope you enjoy my presentation, what I have to say, and give me some feedback, too. 00:00:49
One of the characters in Carol Shields and Blanche Howard's A Celibate Season says, 00:00:55
poetry is what distinguishes a man from his calculator. 00:01:01
It is not that I have objections against calculations, but sometimes I tell myself that a simple 00:01:06
20-word poem can transmit the same as a 200-page novel. 00:01:12
When reading the advanced English curriculum, I shouted, at last, literature is given the 00:01:18
importance it deserves in the English class. 00:01:24
I've been teaching English-speaking literature at high school for 24 years, but most times 00:01:27
it hasn't been easy. 00:01:33
However, at the end of the year, after hard work and perseverance, everybody seems to 00:01:34
understand that this is the essence of the English language itself. 00:01:41
From the Canterbury Tales, through Jane Austen novels, to modern poetic experiments, students 00:01:46
can appreciate how not only the language, but how social types of mentalities evolve. 00:01:52
In my view, the fact that the study of English literature will be compulsory for 12-year-olds 00:01:59
from the next year doesn't mean that the rest of the students at high school must be deprived 00:02:05
of it. 00:02:11
Literature is for all, even for less advanced pupils. 00:02:12
Literature is like music you must read to understand. 00:02:17
I think that rather than a theoretical dissertation about how poetry provokes insights in the 00:02:22
audience, we must be practical. 00:02:28
My aim in this paper is to encourage learners to appreciate English literature and to help 00:02:31
them develop fluency skills in their second language. 00:02:37
In the case of immigrants, it's the third. 00:02:41
In order to do that, I'll show what I do in my classes. 00:02:44
This year, I worked with 14- and 18-year-olds, with three contemporary American poets, such 00:02:48
as the Southern Maya Angelou, the Midwesterner who became a Chicago denizen, Wendolyn Brooks, 00:02:55
and the New Englander who turned into a New Yorker, E.E. 00:03:04
Cummins. 00:03:08
Let's concentrate on the more or less mayhem level. 00:03:09
Mayhem does not mean inaccessible, and for that, we can't diminish the intensity according 00:03:13
to the level of our students. 00:03:20
My classes, I divide the subject into five skills, grammar and vocabulary, writing, reading, 00:03:22
listening, and speaking. 00:03:29
Through observation, assignment, and exams, all of them have a percentage in the final 00:03:31
grade. 00:03:36
There is not an ideal number of exams per term. 00:03:38
Exams are horrible under any circumstances, but they've got to be done, especially because 00:03:41
students must know what it is to be under pressure. 00:03:47
They must understand that everything the teacher says is important, even though it is in English. 00:03:52
English is as serious as mathematics or physics. 00:03:59
History is multipurpose, but it takes time and patience, because nowadays, it just belongs 00:04:04
to the academic arena. 00:04:11
At high school, it's not only what the students can do in the classes, but what they do at 00:04:13
home. 00:04:18
Homework is not pernicious. 00:04:19
A couple of periods per author each term would be fine, but you don't have to dedicate the 00:04:22
whole class to literature. 00:04:27
It is very recommendable to alternate, because other lessons can be taught if you deal with 00:04:30
the same thing all the time. 00:04:36
Poetry can be used for writing, speaking, and listening. 00:04:38
In exams, you can make students write about a poet's biography, recite poems by heart, 00:04:42
memorizing is not a crime against humanity, analyze their implications, have oral or written 00:04:49
dissertations about the themes they deal with, and use them as listening exercises, fill 00:04:56
in the blanks, make questions about them. 00:05:02
Once in the 1960s, United States poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks defined her work as belonging 00:05:06
to the African-American community, and following the example of the older writers of the Harlem 00:05:13
Renaissance, she wrote about black experience and black rage. 00:05:19
But let's listen to what Ms. Brooks said about We Real Cool, the first poem in your 00:05:23
handouts, and the poem itself in the Guggenheim Museum on May the 3rd, 1983. 00:05:29
Let's see. 00:05:35
The sound is not very good. 00:05:36
Oops. 00:05:37
I guess I better offer you We Real Cool. 00:05:38
Most young people know me only by that poem. 00:05:45
I don't mean that I dislike it, but I would prefer it if the textbook compilers of the 00:05:49
anthologists would assume that I've written a few other poems. 00:05:58
I wrote it because I was passing by a pool hall in my community one afternoon during 00:06:03
school time, and I saw therein a little bunch of boys, I'll say here in this poem, seven, 00:06:10
and they were shooting poles. 00:06:20
But instead of asking myself, why aren't they in school, I asked myself, I wonder how they 00:06:22
feel about themselves. 00:06:29
And perhaps they might have considered themselves contemptuous of the establishment, or at least 00:06:31
they wanted to feel that they were contemptuous of the establishment. 00:06:39
Might want to bum their noses at the establishment, and I represented the establishment for the 00:06:44
month of June, which is a nice, gentle, non-controversial, enjoyable, pleasant, fragrant month that everybody 00:06:51
loves. 00:07:01
This poem has been banned here and there because of the word jazz, which some people have considered 00:07:02
a factual reference. 00:07:12
That was not my intention, so I had no objection if it helped anybody. 00:07:15
But I was thinking of music. 00:07:20
The pool players sat at the golden shoals. 00:07:23
Went real coldly. 00:07:28
Left the grueling. 00:07:30
Worked with. 00:07:32
Strut with. 00:07:34
Strip with. 00:07:36
Sing with. 00:07:37
Sting with. 00:07:39
Jazz with. 00:07:41
Effort. 00:07:43
Okay. 00:07:44
So, Ms. Brooks' presentation is short, but significant enough. 00:07:45
Now you can ask the students about what she said about her most famous poem, but it is 00:07:49
recommendable to add something else and may then take notes for the exam or class exercises. 00:07:55
In general terms, and very briefly, I can say that Ms. Brooks dedicates this poem to 00:08:02
everyone who has ever played hooky. 00:08:09
Imitating black English intonation, she emphasizes sound over description and pays a tribute 00:08:12
to Chicago, the center of jazz and blues cultures. 00:08:19
Vocabulary represents this land of big industrial cities. 00:08:23
Such words as lark, thin, jazz strike, and of course, the reference to Walt Whitman in 00:08:27
Wilson's Zen deserve special attention and we must encourage students to use their dictionaries, 00:08:34
encyclopedias, or websites. 00:08:45
Repetition in the poem means insecurity, but the absence of there to be in the first line 00:08:48
asserts presence or identity to finally reach a surprise ending. 00:08:54
Helen Jacobson points out that Missouri-born Maya Angelou is not just somebody, but the 00:09:01
heroine of her stories and poetry who inspires self-determination. 00:09:08
A singer, cinema director, magnificent orator, and personal friend of President Clinton's, 00:09:13
Ms. Angelou's The Half-Boot Dinah is different from her other more serious poems in that 00:09:21
it is a satirical reaction about what is accepted in polite society. 00:09:27
Funny, dynamic, it reminds us of rap rhythms, but let's listen to the poem which is number 00:09:33
two, the second, in your photocopies. 00:09:40
The Half-Boot Dinah by Maya Angelou 00:09:47
No sprouted wheat and soya shoots and brussels in a cake 00:09:52
Carrot straw and spinach raw, today I need a steak 00:09:56
Not thick brown rice and rice poulou or mushrooms creamed on toast 00:10:01
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed, I'm dreaming of a roast 00:10:06
Health food folks around the world are thinned by anxious zeal 00:10:11
They look for help in seafood kelp, I count on breaded veal 00:10:15
No smoking signs, raw mustard greens, zucchini by the ton 00:10:21
Uncooked kale and body spray are sure to make me run 00:10:25
Loins of pork and chicken thighs and standing ribs so primed 00:10:30
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round, I crave them all the time 00:10:35
Irish stews and boiled corned beef and hot dogs by the stores 00:10:40
Or any place that saves the space for smoking carnivores 00:10:45
So the Half-Boot Dinah is an original reaction 00:10:50
to the new wave of health-conscious haters and new-age nighters 00:10:55
which reveals her aversion to health food and her preference 00:11:00
for being a carnivore. Angelou is said to have written the poem 00:11:04
when she was stopped from smoking in a public restaurant 00:11:08
A good exercise for recitation, vocabulary and debate 00:11:12
For and against this type of habit, social hypocrisy 00:11:17
the teacher must make the students aware of the importance of 00:11:21
playfulness in the poem, the voice of what is socially accepted 00:11:25
and what most people really feel. I pitied my sweet 00:11:29
Midlands conversation assistant as she is a true blue vegetarian 00:11:33
So it's specialized vocabulary deserves many a written exercise 00:11:38
You can see one of them in your handouts as well 00:11:43
A dictionary here is a student's best friend and remember 00:11:47
teachers are not walking dictionaries 00:11:51
If Miss Angelou and Miss Brooks are very much sound poems 00:11:55
Mr. Cummins, who died in 1962, are visual ones 00:12:00
It is amazing how history repeats itself 00:12:05
As the Italian writer Eugenio Scafari has just said 00:12:09
in an interview for L'Espresso, we live a landmark 00:12:14
from a civilization based on written words to one based on sounds and images 00:12:18
Mr. Cummins' poetry is not for the ear but for the eye 00:12:23
Perhaps students are not used to this kind of poetry 00:12:28
The best solution to decipher Cummins' poems is to supply 00:12:32
punctuation and capitalization as necessary 00:12:36
to treat each stanza as a separate syntactic unit 00:12:40
to sometimes add words to complete the sentence 00:12:44
to rearrange words within the lines as needed 00:12:48
and to pay attention to context, that's what the teacher is for 00:12:52
Please don't be scared of numbers, black spaces, or Greek letters 00:12:56
in Mr. Cummins' poems 00:13:00
Miss Brooks, this time students are given a written biography 00:13:04
You have it in your photocopies as well 00:13:08
As homework, you must read it at home, translate it mentally, and learn it 00:13:12
There is nothing wrong in using memory 00:13:16
Just the contrary, it helps fix correct expressions and vocabulary forever 00:13:20
and give confidence to pupils when they have to use them 00:13:24
because they know they are correct 00:13:28
The teacher will ask one question per person in the class concerning it 00:13:32
Students must use long answers 00:13:36
If one student doesn't know the answer, you can let the others raise their hands and call it out 00:13:40
This is very motivating for them 00:13:44
and you can also see who the most advanced students in the class are 00:13:48
or the ones who are not able to answer because it is too hard for them 00:13:52
because they don't understand the questions 00:13:56
or because they are never, ever studying 00:14:00
And of course, give them a grade for their speaking and listening exam 00:14:04
The type of questions you can make range from 00:14:08
Where was he born? What was his father's profession? 00:14:12
Where did he live most of his life? Where did he spend his summer holidays? 00:14:16
What did he recount in his first novel, The Enormous Room? 00:14:20
What are his wife's names? How many children did he have? 00:14:24
Why was he disappointed with the Soviet experiment? 00:14:28
Why is Amy a tribute to individualism? 00:14:32
What are the characteristics of his poetry? 00:14:36
What are the themes he explores in his books of poems? 00:14:40
Or what is the significance of comments among modern poets? 00:14:44
Then you can comment a vocabulary in the test and expand it as far as you consider necessary 00:14:48
creating a brainstorming effect 00:14:52
You can ask your students to search, for example, poems 00:14:56
and ask them to enumerate different types of literary works and research sources 00:15:00
Plays, novels, essays, articles, interviews in newspapers 00:15:04
on television, websites, songs, films 00:15:08
Or you can take their shock or non-sociology 00:15:12
for them to name other university degrees and subjects 00:15:16
very important now with the new degrees 00:15:20
Or you can insist on stat sheets interesting for their future studies 00:15:24
at university for research papers and doctoral dissertations 00:15:28
Italics for titles of books, encyclopedias 00:15:36
journals, magazines, newspapers, television programs 00:15:40
songs, films, and inverted commas for articles 00:15:44
poems, chapters of books, or short stories 00:15:48
Then you can deal with geography 00:15:52
take a map of the United States and concentrate on New England 00:15:56
or explain what the Ivy League universities are 00:16:00
or even choose phonetics and rehearse the voice sound 00:16:04
in such words as collectivism, individualism 00:16:08
in contrast to the other sounds as homework 00:16:12
taking commons biography into account 00:16:16
or simply portions of them that you can also see in your handouts 00:16:20
and answer the questions that you have after these poems 00:16:24
So poetry can be irritating when meanings 00:16:28
escape our understanding, but in the end we find that 00:16:32
reading them has been a rewarding experience 00:16:36
You will be surprised at how many questions your students make 00:16:40
and the original ideas they suggest, no matter their age 00:16:44
Actually, there is an interpretation of a poem per reader 00:16:48
I hope that with these little suggestions 00:16:52
these poems will give you ideas for exploiting others that you like 00:16:56
By reading them, one is enfolded in the author's personalities 00:17:00
personalities we both sometimes like to adopt 00:17:04
ourselves, for it seems to resolve many of life's problems 00:17:08
moral and otherwise 00:17:12
As an original English teacher, I know poetry cannot 00:17:16
replace structured work in any classroom 00:17:20
but it has an important role to play alongside it 00:17:24
because as my friend Dawn Nelson from Arizona State University 00:17:28
puts out, poetry is as grammatical 00:17:32
as prose is, the problem is that each poem 00:17:36
has its own grammar. Thank you 00:17:40
applause 00:17:46
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Idioma/s:
en
Etiquetas:
Miscelánea
Autor/es:
Dª.Teresa González Mínguez
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
240
Fecha:
13 de enero de 2011 - 17:26
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid en colaboración con la Consejería de Educación de la Comunidad de Madrid
Descripción ampliada:

La Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid en colaboración con la Consejería de Educación de la Comunidad de Madrid acogió el I Congreso Internacional sobre Bilingüismo en Centros Educativos que se celebró en Madrid en la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos los días 14, 15 y 16 de junio de 2010.


En los últimos años, se ha observado una implicación cada vez mayor en los países europeos respecto a la educación bilingüe con el fin de preparar a sus alumnos para sus futuros estudios, trabajo y vida en una Europa cada vez más multilingüe. Si el objetivo es conseguir una Europa multilingüe, el Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos y Lengua (AICOLE) sería el instrumento necesario para conseguir esta meta. Como consecuencia, el AICOLE ha provocado un gran interés en los últimos años en Europa, y  especialmente en España.


Por otro lado la Comunidad de Madrid se ha convertido en una región de referencia gracias a su decidida apuesta por el bilingüismo en los centros educativos. Un ambicioso proyecto iniciado en el año 2004 que cuenta en la actualidad con 242 colegios públicos en los que se desarrolla una enseñanza bilingüe de gran calidad. Este curso 20010-2011 el modelo alcanza a la enseñanza secundaria donde se extenderá con la puesta en marcha de 32 institutos bilingües. Estas políticas educativas están produciendo resultados muy apreciables y han generado un gran interés entre los profesores que se sienten cada vez más atraídos por este tipo de enseñanza.


Por estas razones, este I Congreso Internacional sobre Bilingüismo en Centros Educativos ha estado dirigido a profesores de primaria, secundaria y universidades, a investigadores y responsables políticos interesados en la educación bilingüe y en metodología AICOLE.
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