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‘Suddenly, I am part of the poem’: texts as worlds, reader-response and grammar in teaching poetry

Cushing, I; (2018) ‘Suddenly, I am part of the poem’: texts as worlds, reader-response and grammar in teaching poetry. English in Education , 52 (1) pp. 7-19. 10.1080/04250494.2018.1414398. Green open access

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Abstract

This article draws on research into using reader-response theory as a way of thinking about teaching grammar and poetry in the English classroom. Framing my discussion around world-based models of reader-response such as Transactional Theory (Rosenblatt 1938 Rosenblatt, L. 1938. Literature as Exploration. New York, NY: Appleton Century Crofts. [Google Scholar] , 1978 Rosenblatt, L. 1978. The Reader, the Text and the Poem. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. [Google Scholar] ) and Text World Theory (Gavins 2007 Gavins, J. 2007. Text World Theory: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [Google Scholar] ; Werth 1999 Werth, P. 1999. Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. London: Longman. [Google Scholar] ), I argue that this approach is useful in that it foregrounds the creative nature of reading whilst providing a systematic way of analysing language. I analyse data from a series of Key Stage 3 poetry lessons, showing how world-based approaches provide a “concept-driven pedagogical tool” for the teaching of grammar, giving KS3 students the opportunity to build and develop on KS2 grammatical knowledge. I also show how this approach helped to produce authentic responses to literature and generated meta-reflective discussions on the reading process. I argue that this approach offers an intuitive, accessible and contextualised method for exploring how language and grammar work.

Type: Article
Title: ‘Suddenly, I am part of the poem’: texts as worlds, reader-response and grammar in teaching poetry
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/04250494.2018.1414398
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2018.1414398
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: grammar teaching, poetry, reader-response theory, text world theory, transactional theory
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10066680
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