On Teaching Sylvia Plath

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Today was a great day, not just because it's Friday and for the first time in months I slept for 7.5 hours straight last night. Today my students finished up with their last Sylvia Plath poem- our twentieth in sixteen days. This isn't to say that we're done with her completely- there's more in store next week and after Christmas break. But in terms of new material, we're done. Smiles and sighs of relief all around. 

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I went into the unit feeling very pessimistic- I'm not a fan of poetry and she's not exactly a good time, given the serious subject matter of her work. We had have a large sampling of poems, though, and of a certain line length, so she did fit that bill. A colleague also had a list of several poems that she had previously used, so I was able to take several from what she had and add four or five of some that I had found as well. Part convenience, part "what does it matter I hate poetry anyway." Adding to the feelings of contempt is that teaching poetry means a lot of copies, on shitty machines that barely work. 

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As we started I realized that I didn't hate teaching Plath quite as much as I thought I would. First of all, teaching poetry with the time restraints that I had requires systematic routines and procedures, which I love. My students would get a copy, they'd read it and annotate it on their own to the best of their ability, and then we'd discuss in class, either by stanza or with some guiding questions that I'd throw up on the board. I typically had them read the poem in class in order to prevent them from simply asking Google what it was about, which wasn't the most efficient use of time, but it seemed more authentic to me. And it worked, since a lot of her poems aren't terribly long. Then the following night they had a standard three activities to do with it. Anyway, the routine was good. I'm a big fan of routine.

I also, at least temporarily, enjoyed analyzing the poems myself, which I made sure to do each day, since I'm the teacher and all (although I had to make sure to be careful about telling the students the answers; they needed to be the ones doing the heavy lifting). Some of the poems, like "Family Reunion," and "The Eye-Mote," were on the simpler side, while "Thin People," "The Collosus," and a few other were much tougher. It definitely did not come naturally to me, but unlocking the pieces ended up being quite rewarding. I haven't really felt challenged on a literary level for awhile, so it was nice to feel like I was actually learning.

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My students had mixed feelings about the experience, and I plan to give them a reflection on Monday for more feedback. We did enjoy making fun of her at times, and I had several students that read, and liked, The Bell Jar. They struggled quite a bit, especially in the beginning, but in the last few days they really started honing in on their natural teenage BSing skills and started making some vast improvements. I think (?) that at least some of my more serious students ended up feeling the same way I did- relieved to be done but proud they battled through the work. And I even had a few girls that said they really wish we were going to keep going with Plath for awhile, which was surprising. 

While I'm not in a rush to read anymore Plath, or any poetry for that matter, I do think that it's important to stretch yourself as a teacher, reader and person.