The right learning environment can have a very positive impact on a student. Not only does a well-planned and interactive classroom provide students with an exciting and dynamic way to learn; it can also help improve their knowledge and understanding. These ideas are targeted at teaching English lessons.
A Poem of the Week with Literary Terms and Definitions
A poem of the week, written up on a section of whiteboard, or printed in a large font and put up on the wall, introduces students across the 11-18 age range to new poets and their poems. It can also be a useful resource for your English lessons. You could keep a selection of laminated literary terms nearby, with a pack of blue-tack. An extension task for students could be to "annotate" the poem with the laminated terms. You could also team these with separately laminated definitions, thereby also having the opportunity for students to match the terms with their definition, as a useful starter, plenary or extension task.
Suggested terms and definitions for your classroom:
- onomatopoeia – a word that sounds like the word it describes, eg: "smash!"
- caesura – a gap in a poetic line, eg: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
- enjambement – when a sentence or phrase goes over the end of a poetic line, eg: "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height (NEW LINE) My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight."
- simile – when two things are compared using "like" or "as," eg: "as quick as a flash!"
- sibilance – repetition of a "s" or "sh" sound, eg: the word itself!
- personification – when an inanimate object is described to have human qualities, eg: 'the wind whistled'
Using a "Discover a Poem" Board in your Classroom
In order to make your classroom more tactile and interactive, you can use a "Discover a Poem" board. This involves a selection of poems, each poem printed onto the outside of a folded piece of card. The card should be blue-tacked closed to the wall in your classroom. If a student opens the card, they can read extra information about the poem, including its author or historical context. The board, therefore, is a useful demonstration of how we can read read literature: on surface value, or in light of context. It could be homework, a class task or an extension task for students to choose and make the cards themselves.
Using Literary Quotes to Decorate your Classroom
You could also decorate areas of your room with quotes. This not only provides interesting material for any wandering eyes, but also introduces students to new writers and ideas, and can provide a useful English lesson resource. Lower years, for example, when discussing the difference between poetry, prose and drama, can be asked to find an example of each by searching around the room. This would also work when looking at different literary terms (eg. metaphors, alliteration, etc.) – students could search around the classroom for examples and record them.
Suggested quotes:
- On a door – exit: Exit pursued by a bear – From The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare.
- On a door – entrance: To enter in these bonds is to be free – From "To His Mistress Going to Bed'" by John Donne.
- Near a clock: But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near – From "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell.
- On a window: Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world. – George Bernard Shaw (Irish writer and socialist, 1856-1950).
Improving Classroom Wall Displays and Creating Interactive English Lessons
Displays around your clasroom can include students’ work, particularly work which gives spelling, punctuation or grammar tips. They could also be teacher-made. For example, a display on using signposts in writing could help students when completing an essay in your English lesson. Such a display could include a large picture of a post, with different directional posts (here in bold) and, under each post, useful signposting words:
For example:
- finding a similarity – similarly, likewise, equally, in the same way,
- finding a difference – however, in contrast, conversely, on the other hand,
- making a conclusion – therefore, hence, consequently, thus
Displays could also involve enlarged copies of extracts from texts studied in class. The extracts could be annotated and highlighted by students, and you can arrange slips of paper made by students naming literary techniques around the text (you need a large board for this, though). Students love helping to set up such displays in the classroom by having the task of matching terms up to passages in the text. This can be done by tying a piece of string to two pins, effectively joining up the correct passage to the correct literary term.
Kate Johnson - I grew up in Rainford, St. Helens in North West England. After sixth-form, I read English at Mansfield College, Oxford and graduated in ...
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