Enhancing the Outcome of Students’ Poetry Engagement through Poetry Performance

Abstract

Student’s performance in poetry has been consistently low compared to other genres like essays, short stories and drama. An analysis of the midterm examination result of a higher secondary school in Tsirang district reveals that significant number of students scored less in poetry than other literary genres. This pattern reflects a gap in understanding and engagement with poetry. As poetry implies a combination of analytical and imaginative skills, the existing teaching approaches might not adequately cater to the needs of students with different learning styles which would result in poor academic performance. Hence, this study sought to address this issue by exploring innovative teaching strategies such as role play and art-based approaches to enhance student’s understanding and engagement with poetry. It further explored students’ perception of the approaches. Using an action research framework, the study was conducted employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect data. The quantitative data was gathered through survey questionnaire and student achievement test involving pre-test and post-test. The qualitative data was gathered through focus group discussion. The findings indicated that student’s demonstrated increased interest, improved analytical skills and a deeper appreciation for poetry. The study concluded that integrating role play and art-based approaches can effectively transform traditional teaching into a more interactive and impactful experience, providing a model for other teachers to adopt.