#teachingguide

Prior Knowledge, Visual aids, an Open Mind. 

With the emergence of new media, teachers should make use of the multimodal platform to bring poetry to life. According to Hughes (2008) “students might use new media in the reading, writing or representing of poetry by adding visual images, sound or annotation” (p. 154). Similarly, the teaching of Chinua Achebe should be brought to life in classrooms through the various modes – aural, visual, auditory. 

 Africa is a vibrant and lively continent, and is often portrayed in a singular way in mass media. Teachers should first gather information from students by asking them what they know of Africa, tapping into the students’ prior knowledge of the place. 

Q1: What do you know about Africa? 

Following that, they should then build on the students’ points, or guide them towards a more comprehensive understanding of how vast and different parts of Africa are like. Then, narrow in to Nigeria. Teachers should use visual aids to paint a portrait of the landscape from where Achebe resides. This gives the students a brief background of his life. Students can also use these visual aids to gain a sense of the issues that plague the country, or what Achebe might write about. 

 Q2: What kind do you think Achebe would write about? 

Teaching poetry should also be “playful rather than serious” (Hughes, 2008, p. 157) so students can really live through the experience and immerse themselves in the poem instead of dissecting them and losing the passion for the words. After having a visual guide, students can also watch some of the videos on Achebe to get a sense of how he has impacted those around him. Teachers should also give students a brief summary on Achebe’s life, as introduced in the biography on this website. 

Before diving in to one of his poems, students can form groups to write a short poem, as though they were in his shoes. This allows students to not just be consumers of poetry, but producers as well. This sense of ownership would also help them become more interested and invested in the poet and his works. 

Q3: If you were Achebe, what would your poems look like? 

Pedagogical Principles to employ. 

Themes & Real World Issues: After taking a look at the themes on this website and discussing the landscape and environment of Nigeria, students are now more sensitive to the themes in the poem. Relate these issues and discuss its relevancy to issues that concern the students’ immediate realities. 

Class Discussion:  Keller writes that the purpose of class discussion is to “enhance that encounter through analysis, as the solitary experience is unfolded and modified through exposure to others’ responses” (Retallack, 2006, p. 31). As students begin to analyse the poem together, they learn from each other and gain new understandings and perspective to how you can read a poem. The following are options to consider when conducting class discussions for this topic. 

Deconstruction: The kind of pedagogical principles to implement would depend on the lesson objectives. After a broad overview on Achebe and his works, students can begin to deconstruct the poems to exercise their literary techniques. Two examples have been posted under “Teach” in the website, although more could be analysed. Teachers should introduce various literary techniques used in the two poems such as juxtaposition, diction, and personification. These are a few of the more obvious techniques to take note of. Following which, teachers introduce other techniques such as metaphors (as Achebe uses the metaphor of a plant in Mango Seedling to represent Okigbo’s contributions to the African community), and repetition (as seen in the last stanza of Dereliction to give the effect of chanting, prayers). 

Activity: Collaborative Learning  1. Each group is given one literary device to work with 2. The whole class focuses on ONE poem, and pick out what they find using their group’s device 3. The class comes together to share their findings 4. After sharing, each group then discusses what they have learnt from the other groups to come up with a short critique or analysis of the poem (in written form) 

Reader-response: Teachers can also give each group one poem to analyse, and hand them flash cards with various themes on them. Groups can then be asked to match the themes to the poem at hand. These themes could include war, strife, conflict between modernity and tradition, death, heroism, nature, etc. As they recognise the themes, they have a broad overview of the poem. They can they use the literary techniques learnt to pick out evidence from the poem that support their statements or what they feel the poem is about. 

--- Sources Hughes, J. (2008). The ‘screen-size’ art: Using digital media to perform poetry. English in Education, 42(2), 148-164.