Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, LMU Munich (Institut fur Anglistik), language: English, abstract: In general, poetry seems to be a fairly neglected topic in today's classrooms. Reasons for this may be multiple1 and it is probably difficult to determineuniversally valid explanations. It does not make a difference whether it is poetryin the mother tongue or poetry in a foreign language; it just seems that poetry ingeneral does not seem to be very popular. Skipping through the currentschoolbooks the impression occurs that poetry only plays a subordinate role. Also, when under time pressure and the necessity to drop certain topics, poetryseems to be among the first ones to be dropped. The question arises whether thisis due to teachers who never found access to poetry? The extra effort it mighttake to prepare for a poetry lesson? Or is it lacking courage to approach a topicthat seems to be unpopular? It is up to teachers to either inspire or discouragepupils when it comes to poetry. This inspiration or discouragement may last alifetime. Many pupils probably consider poetry as un-cool . But in the time of events likeliterature and poetry slams, which are highly enjoyed by many pupils andstudents, it should be worth re-thinking the attitude about poetry and to bringpoetry to the classrooms. With this paper I would like to show approaches, activities and ideas howteachers can make poetry more popular in the classroom.
