EEE Week 6 Assignment

 

 

   About two weeks ago, I blogged a writing about a poem named “To a daughter leaving home”. However, it was not only me to think the poem is appropriate for high school students. There were many other bloggers who posted a writing to recommend the poem, and in this essay I would like to introduce three of them: Yura Eum, A-jeong Kim and Jihye Oh. The specific reasons why they chose the poem are pretty different from each other but at the same time the reasons are very similar, looking at large. All three bloggers thought the poem has two appropriacy: message appropriacy and language appropriacy.

    Yura Eum points out that this poem conveys touching and emotional message to students and this will make “students put themselves in their parents’ shoes”(2014.10.14). Also, she said that this poem will be good for high school students in aspect of language appropriacy, as well. According to Eum, the level of vocabularies are not too difficult and there are some familiar words, so students would be able to understand the poem easily. In addition, some metaphors in the poem will let students learn rhetoric devices.

    A-jeong kim had a similar thought with Eum’s related to message appropriacy of the poem but the reason related to language appropriacy was kind of different and creative. She writes, “...its’ genre is literature, students will be exposed to poetic expression instead of academic expression” (Kim, 2014, 10, 14). She said this will have a beneficial influence on developing students’ character. That’s one of the most interesting points in her essay.

    Lastly, Jihye Oh says that this poem will be good teaching material for high school students, as well. In aspect of message appropriacy, she says that the poem has relevance to many students’ real life experiences and this will improve students’ motivation (Oh, 2014.10.14). She reminds us that motivation is one of the most important factor for effective learning by using a famous pedagogist, Keller’s theory. On the other hand, in the aspect of language appropriacy, she says that the vocabularies in the poem are used in real world and that gives students good challenging about this poem.

    In summary, the specific reasons why they recommend this poem are different, but in the way that they have common and big two standards: message appropriacy and language appropriacy, all three bloggers give a fine defense of using “To a daughter leaving home” in a high school literature lesson.

References:

Eum, Yura (2014.10.14) “To a daughter leaving home” [Web Log Post]  Retrieved from http://yura0419.blogspot.kr/

Kim, A-jeong (2014. 10.14) “How about studying poem?” [Web Log Post] http://kkabjjeong2.blogspot.kr/

Oh, Jihye (2014. 10. 14) “EEE Week 5 Assignment” [Web Log Post] http://jihaeooooo.blogspot.kr/

Poem recommendation - To a daughter leaving home

 

 To teach how to read poems to high school students, selecting appropriate poem is the first important step. There could be some criterion in choosing good poem but I would like to suggest two of standards. First one is the message implied in the poem. The message should contain educational meaning. Second one is the level of the language such as vocabulary and the structure of the poem. Considering two of standards, I think To a daughter leaving home  will be a good poem for high school students.

 The poem has educational message letting the students remind value of their parents and gain insight into what the meaning of independence from them is. The main story of the poem is raising a daughter into a beautiful young woman and not wanting to let her go. When she was young, she lived in the safe zone of her parents but as she gets old she become independent. Finally she is now capable of going out into the real world and is no longer constantly depending on her parents. I think high school students can feel empathy with this poem because they are also about to leave their parents. It's not far from their age. When they read the poem, they can understand how their parents will feel about saying goodbye and they could prepare the future with more serious attitude.

 This poem should be good to teach about poetic language to students. The level of vocabulary is not that difficult and there are many literary devices students have to learn such as symbolism and metaphor. The main idea in this poem is riding a bike as a metaphor to life. Parents teach their children numerous things and are overjoyed by their children's accomplishments but it is always hard to let them venture out into the real world alone, without mom and dad. Students can learn naturally what the symbolism and metaphor are by reading this poem and can get a feel for them.

 In short, through this poem students can get a valuable message for their life and they are able to train their eye to read literary text and learn new words in the poem. For these reasons, I recommend the poem To a daughter leaving home to the students.