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2022 Workshop Talk | 49:53 | All Grade Levels, Literature

Summary


Because I was taught to hunt for meaning above all, I in turn have taught many a poem the wrong way. I’ve frustrated my own students who were positive that teachers knew the secret formula to dissect meaning. But more importantly, I’m guilty of stealing the joy of the experience of reading a poem, all because I wanted my students to know parts and labels. Brooks and Warren say that reading poetry is not message-hunting, not an emotional experience, and not identifying a beautiful statement of high truth (Understanding Poetry, 1938). How, then, should we approach poetry?

Speaker


Christine Norvell has taught in classical, homeschool, and public education for over twenty years. She serves as the upper school dean and as a high school humanities teacher for Sager Classical Academy in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. With an MA in humanities from Faulkner University’s Great Books program and a BS in English education, she has also taught at Regent Preparatory and with Kepler Education. Christine is a senior contributor at The Imaginative Conservative and has written for Circe, University Bookman, VoegelinView, Mere Orthodoxy, StoryWarren, and others. She is the author of Till We Have Faces: A Reading Companion (2020) and writes regularly at her teaching blog.

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The Association of Classical & Christian Schools presents Repairing the Ruins, the ACCS annual conference, copyright ACCS. You may make additional copies of this recording for use by your school but please do not sell any copies of the recording, or post it on the internet.