Listmates,

Has much been done to develop a curriculum for teaching poetry using grammatical analysis?  Does anyone on the list approach poems by looking at their grammatical structures?  I have done this with my 7th graders, now that they have learned some grammar, and have found that once they see what is going on grammatically, they can usually see what the poem means more clearly.  For instance, in Housman's poem

 

	From the wash the laundress sends
	My collars home with ravelled ends:
	I must fit, now these are frayed,
	My neck with new ones London-made.
5	Homespun collars, homespun hearts,
	Wear to rags in foreign parts.
	Mine at least's as good as done,
	And I must get a London one.

 

Most of my students thought the poet was talking about collars, and they couldn't see the point of the poem.  Once they saw that the first stanza and second stanzas differed in number ( ones, one, are, 's), they were able to see that the poet had shifted from talking about collars to talking about his own heart and how it had changed.  I didn't stop at grammar, but starting with grammar helped them see the poem. 

 

I know this might sound strange, but maybe a series of graded exercises, using authentic poems by great poets, might give students an opportunity to apply their developing grammatical knowledge by giving them access to otherwise incomprehensible poems.

 

Scott Woods