Hi everyone,

These particular questions have been troubling me since many months. i have gone through a lot of research but there is no definite answer. Could you answer them for me? Thanks in Advance.

Avanti 

Just my perspective:

 

We �re talking 12 years olds, at this age they are discovering and exploring music lyrics, which are also a form of poetry. I would think waking their interest with exploartory questions (e.g What could they mean by this?, Why do you think they would say something like that? Could this maybe have two meanings?). My fear is, by making them identify iambic pentameter and explain why Shakespeare so loved to use it, they would start seeing poetry as just another grammar lesson. "Poetry is art to be experienced and lived"--this is the feeling we should be trying to instill in them, not "oh look it is a sonnet because it has 14 lines in iambic penatmeter."

 

It �s probably just a more personal thing, but cutting art into mechanics or telling children at such a young age that only  certain interpretations of a work are correct  seems destructive to me.

 

Cheers,

Douglas