Education & Higher Learning

There have been innovative concepts introduced in the field of education so that learning becomes all the more fun and the learner has a sense of achievement. With the increased pace of World Wide Web, education is no more limited to a small classroom. The whole concept of education has observed a change of how learning was imparted. The confines of a classroom no more exists, education is now a global phenomenon wherein a person sitting in any part of the world can have access to educational institutes or colleges situated thousands of miles apart. The advent of Internet has surely revolutionized education and learning in a big way.

Education imparted through the means of Internet can be broadly referred to as virtual education. The characteristic feature of virtual education is that the teachers as well as the learners are separated by geographical constraints and lessons are imparted online or in a virtual classroom. In a virtual classroom, traditional classroom education is combined with technological advancements to give a product called e-learning or online learning.

More often than not, if you ask literature teachers how they feel about poetry, they will tell you that they don’t like teaching it because the students don’t like learning about it. While it is true that many students balk at the mention of poetry, this is usually because the teachers try to teach it just like a book, without explaining things like word choice, form, or even what is going on in the poem. Adding some fun activities to a unit on poetry can really help students come up with their own understanding of poetry, and then they can bring that personal connection to the poems you read in class.

One of the most important things to teach when you are teaching poetry is about the form of the poem you are reading. Even free verse poems that seemingly lack a form have an art to them. Poetry is different from prose in that there are lines, and when the poet writes a poem, he or she pays careful attention to those lines. Very often, important phrases end at the line, or poets include important words at the end of the line. This can help draw attention to the words and phrases that are used in the poem, and can help illuminate the meaning of the poem.

By asking students what they think the most important word in the poem is, you are asking them to think about the poet’s word choice. This is actually a very difficult question for students to answer because usually they want to choose a whole phrase. By asking them to pick one word, you are forcing them to look at the whole poem through a critical eye. If they are stuck and need help, you can always give them hints. Important words can be repeated over and over within the poem. Repetition is always a signal of an important word. Other important words can embody the entire theme or message of the poem, or can be a word that the students like the sound or meaning of. Most importantly, remind the students that, as long as they can explain their choice, there are no wrong answers.