“It’s so boring.”
“I never understand it.”
“Not really my thing.”
Each year, my sophomores express their…misgivings with studying poetry. I know sighs of resignation are coming before the word “poetry” even escapes my lips.
“Poetry’s not your thing, huh?” I ask one who I notice has a set of AirPods sitting on her desk or (gasp!) an earbud in one of her ears. “What are you listening to right now?”
Billie Eilish. Jack Harlow. Olivia Rodrigo. The names flow out of them.
“Oh good!” I respond. “Poets!” I receive some skeptical side-eye, but I take advantage of technology at my fingertips and quickly pull up the lyrics to a song by one of the named artists (a clean version, of course) and project it onto my whiteboard.
As teachers we know making our lessons relevant to our students is the hook that can entice them to engage fully with content, and to do so in a meaningful, effective way. We need not start with Shakespeare or Whitman; the skills one needs to analyze and appreciate poetry are far more important than learning about any one specific poem or poet. So we begin with music.
I ask if the song up on the board, whatever it is depending on students’ musical tastes that semester, is a poem. Inevitably, most say no, and we engage in a debate over what defines a poem. We discuss ballads and lyric poetry. Sonnets. Odes. Elegies. Poetry isn’t just musical – it is music.
I model how to annotate the lyrics, asking for their input on literary devices or figurative language they notice. Allusions are particularly fun if it means they must explain to Millennial ol’ me the Hollywood gossip they refer to.
Then it’s their turn. My students’ job is to select a song they enjoy, ensuring it is a clean, radio edit that I have pre-approved for class, and to apply either a TPCASTT (Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Attitude, Shifts, Title Reevaluation, Theme) or SOAPStone (Subject, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Speaker, Tone) analysis to the piece. They also must identify five different examples of unique literary devices or figurative language used in the song and be able explain how these contribute to the song’s theme, mood, or tone.
For the duration of the poetry unit, each student opens a class with their song-as-poetry analysis as the bell ringer (and sometimes get to play us out at the end of class with the song itself). It’s unique every day, is highly engaging, and reinforces their understanding of the elements necessary for poetry analysis. Best of all, it helps students see both “classic” poetry and modern music through a new and unifying lens. Rock on!
Further Reading:
Aubrey Sebestyen teaches 10th Grade English, AP Language and Composition, and PEN, an elective for academically gifted students, at Central Bucks High School East in Doylestown, PA, where she also serves as co-adviser for Phantasmagoria, a club celebrating student art, poetry, and music.
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