Rationale
Loss is one of the most universal human experience that we are confronted with most acutely throughout our lives. This unit of poetry seeks to sensitise students to the realities of loss, tragedy and the reality of human existence through an exploration of loss through multiple perspectives and experiences of loss in poetry. The complexity and nuance of the weight of loss lends itself to a rich exploration as a literary theme that will allow students to confront the multi-dimensionality of such experiences and emotions. Through an examination of various forms, genres, and poets across different time periods, students will develop a sensitivity and understanding of the language of loss as evoked through different social and personal perspectives. As students navigate through the complexities of loss as represented in literature, they will also be able to better articulate their own intimate experiences with loss and death, while gaining a greater appreciation for poetry and literature in its ability to connect to and convey complex human emotions and experiences.
Additionally, this unit plan also provides a rigorous engagement with diverse poetic forms and literary devices that will equip students with the skills and capacity to tackle unseen poetry in the O Level examinations.
The unit is structured according to the various stages of grief (based on the Kübler-Ross model) and will progress according to the trajectory of human emotional experiences: denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This affords us a more structured framework with which to organise the lessons around the central idea of the representation of loss as a technique. Each lesson will therefore focus on a specific stage aligned with the choice of texts.
By the end of the unit, students should be able to independently analyse a poem at both denotative and connotative levels, analyse poets’ use of various literary elements in texts, and demonstrate understanding of the nuanced complexities of emotions that is evoked by experiences of loss and subjective realm of grief.
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Theoretical Approaches
Overall, the lessons employ a blend of new criticism, reader-response criticism, and discussions are facilitated through socratic questioning techniques.
As this unit is designed for Secondary 4 students, students should already be familiar with the various literary devices. The unit will thus cover and reinforce a range of these skills but with an explicit focus on word choice and figurative language as a conveyance of the theme of loss."
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Due to the universality of loss as an experience, there is much value in having students engage with the poems using a reader-response approach. Such an approach would allow for a heightened literary engagement, as students would “bring the text to bear upon their own experience, and their own histories to bear upon the text” (Probst, 1994), allowing for students to achieve both a richer understanding of the poem as well as their own lives.
Loss, as represented in text, almost invariably involves varying and complex emotions such as anger and depression, which require empathy on the part of the reader in order to fully comprehend. Hence, this unit encourages students to connect with the various poems personally by engaging with their affective responses as readers, as well as bringing in their own lived experiences in their analysis. Allowing students to draw on what they have concrete personal knowledge of allows for deeper and more authentic understandings of themes and even stylistic features (Probst, 1994).
More importantly, a reader-response approach to analysis allows students to develop a deeper understanding of themselves (Probst, 1994). In reading texts related to loss, it is possible that this would trigger students’ personal memories. The process of analysing the text would then also be an opportunity for students to re-examine their experiences as well, fulfilling the unit’s potential for developing students cognitively as well as affectively.
Where the strength in reader-response criticism lies in the “interplay between a reader’s experience and the text,” (Beach et al, 2006) the new criticism approach helps students become “close readers” (Bressler, 2002) who are able to effectively engage with the literary details of a text. Integrating both approaches in this unit thus allows for a strong emotional and aesthetic engagement with poems about loss.
Because of new criticism’s emphasis on making use of certain objective methodologies in “discover[ing]” a poem’s meaning just based on the text alone, it prepares students well for the unseen poetry section of the GCE O Level examinations. Furthermore, as this class consists of students who lack confidence in reading poems with minimal guidance, having a tangible set of criteria through which to access a poem would provide scaffolding for their analysis and help them approach poems they may not immediately connect with.
The lessons are designed to incorporate innovative methods and activities that will allow for a more experiential learning and comprehension of the concepts and literary techniques in this unit. For instance, in the introductory lesson, students will get to play a game of charades where they will have to express and represent words and phrases relating to the theme of loss through actions and acting. Through this, students will become aware of the various ways of representing and this activity functions as a way into understanding representation as a technique as explored by the various poets in the following lessons.
Additionally, one of the lesson plan also includes a choral performance, which provides an opportunity for creative expression. This kinesthetic activity not only injects more vibrance and energy into the classroom, it also facilitates collaborative learning and builds confidence as students are required to analyse and interpret the text with each other and express their creativity artistically.
Lastly, the lesson on bargaining involves a creative writing exercise whereby students will assume the position of a lover whom the poetic persona is addressing, hence constituting a meta-cognitive exercise whereby they are able to reflect upon their own thinking. Further, the employment of emotive words in their response will also be reflective of the tone they feel is aligned with the tone of the poem, hence prompting them to make justifications for their choice of words and the phrases that make them achieve that conclusion.
References
Beach, R., Appleman, D., Hynds, S., & Wilhelm, J. D. (2011). Teaching literature to adolescents. London: Routledge.
Probst, R. E. (1994). Reader-Response Theory and the English Curriculum. The English Journal, 83(3), 37. doi:10.2307/820925
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