In the seminar dealing with poetry in language education we decided to investigate contemporary students’ attitude towards poetry, furthermore their experiences with poetry in school. The most appropriate way to achieve reasonable results to this question seemed to be a questionnaire, which we planned to hand in in class and analyze later on at home. With regard to a useful target group we finally decided to deal with a grammar school’s senior class, close to university campus in a wealthy district of Hamburg and with a strong probability of a high educational level in the family background. In an area with such conditions we assumed to find students that had come in touch with poetry more often than students with a less sophisticated background. Beginning with developing a research design, the main research question and the questionnaire, we aimed at the students’ personal interest in poetry, their experiences with poetry in their leisure time and their poetry experiences during English classes. The core of our project lies in the verification or falsification of a thesis by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, containing that most students’ experiences with poetry at school, especially the way poetry is taught at school, have a demotivating effect on the students’ general attitude towards poetry.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Planning the Research Project
2.1. Developing the Research Question
2.2 Its Relevance for the Language Classroom
2.3 Research Design Development
3. Carrying out the Project
3.1 What really happened?
3.2 Data obtained
4. Evaluation of Data
5. Reflections
5.1. Chances and Limitations of Design and possible Improvements
5.2. Significance of Research Project for the Language Classroom
6. Individual Evaluation of the Project
6.1. Benjamin Türksoy’s individual Evaluation
6.2. Jascha Walter’s individual Evaluation
7. Works cited
Research Objectives and Themes
The research project aims to investigate contemporary students' attitudes towards poetry and their experiences with it in an educational context, specifically seeking to verify or falsify Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s thesis that traditional poetry instruction has a demotivating effect on students.
- Analysis of student interest in poetry during leisure time.
- Evaluation of experiences with poetry in the English language classroom.
- Investigation into student perceptions regarding multiple versus singular poem interpretations.
- Methodological design and implementation of a targeted questionnaire for senior high school students.
- Reflection on the challenges of objective qualitative and quantitative social research.
Excerpt from the Book
2.1. Developing the Research Question
Being future teachers and being interested in practical aspects we could make use of in our future workplaces, we quickly became aware of our personal interest to learn more about students’ attitude to poetry and the way poetry is taught at school. This we brought in connection with a theoretical text we had encountered a few weeks before, Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s “Modest proposal to protect the youth from proposals of poetry”. Here Enzensberger states that poetry and furthermore its interpretation are used as tools to demotivate students and to discourage their interest in poetry. According to that, many teachers hold the opinion that a poem can have only one correct interpretation, what disheartens the students and makes them feel forced to deal with poetry, not only at school but even for their whole future lives. Although we lack the possibility to investigate a representative target group and to achieve representative results, we want to try to find out whether Enzensberger’s thesis can be verified or falsified. To do this, we designed a questionnaire that aimed as clearly and exclusively at aspects that are included in Enzensberger’s statement. These are the students’ experience with poetry and the way it is taught at school, the students’ personal opinion of poetry and the students’ tendency to be occupied with poetry in their leisure time, which represents a more concrete image of their personal opinion.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: The authors outline their motivation to study student attitudes toward poetry in response to Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s critique of poetry instruction.
2. Planning the Research Project: This chapter details the process of selecting a target group, formulating research questions, and developing the questionnaire design.
3. Carrying out the Project: The authors describe the practical implementation of their survey at the Wilhelm Gymnasium and provide an overview of the gathered data.
4. Evaluation of Data: The collected survey results are analyzed, concluding that the target group largely confirms Enzensberger’s thesis regarding a lack of interest in poetry.
5. Reflections: This section critically examines the limitations of the research methodology and the broader significance of the findings for future language teaching.
6. Individual Evaluation of the Project: Both authors provide personal insights and reflections on what they learned during the research and design process.
7. Works cited: A list of academic sources and methodological references used throughout the project.
Keywords
Poetry, Language Education, Questionnaire, Enzensberger, Student Attitude, Research Methodology, Teaching Poetry, Interpretation, English Classroom, Secondary Education, Motivation, Data Analysis, Curriculum, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental focus of this research paper?
The paper examines students' attitudes toward poetry and whether traditional school-based poetry instruction contributes to a decline in interest, based on a thesis by Hans Magnus Enzensberger.
Which thematic fields are addressed in this project?
The study focuses on three main areas: poetry consumption in leisure time, experiences with poetry in English language classes, and personal opinions regarding the interpretation of poetry.
What is the primary objective of the researchers?
The main goal is to test the validity of Enzensberger's claim that the school system, particularly through rigid and narrow interpretations of poems, demotivates students.
Which research methodology was employed?
The researchers conducted a survey using a structured questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions, administered to a senior high school class in Hamburg.
What constitutes the main body of the work?
The main body covers the theoretical planning, the practical execution of the survey, the empirical analysis of the data, and critical reflections on the methodology and findings.
What are the key terms that define this project?
The project is characterized by terms such as poetry education, questionnaire design, Enzensberger’s thesis, student motivation, and pedagogical reflection.
How did the students react to the idea of multiple interpretations of a poem?
The data suggests that the majority of students favored the idea that a poem can have multiple interpretations, contradicting the narrow, single-interpretation approach criticized by Enzensberger.
Did the researchers conclude that the school environment is solely responsible for the students' lack of interest?
No, while they confirmed a general lack of interest, they noted it is difficult to isolate whether this is caused solely by school instruction or by other factors like the perceived difficulty and archaic language of the poetry itself.
- Quote paper
- Jascha Walter (Author), Benjamin Türksoy (Author), 2007, Poetry in the English Class-room, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/128336
