CHAPT£R2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITER-\TrRE
2. 1 Reading
According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2001),
Reading has eight meaningseven so there are only four meaning among them
that are relevant to this particular thesis:
a. The activity/skill: the activity ofunderstanding written words
b. Understanding: your opinion of what a particular statement, situation,
etc. means
c. Books: the books, articles, etc. that you read
d.
To a group: 1) an occasion when a piece of literature is read to a group
of people: a poetry reading
2) a piece of literature or part of the Bible
that is read to a group of people.
These four definitions are similar to what Beech and Singleton edit in The
Psychological Assessment of Reading, reading is the ability to comprehend the
thoughts and feelings of another mind via the medium of text (p. 162).
As a cognitive process, reading is the formal or technical process of
knowing, understanding,
and learning something.
This point of view has
attracted cognitive psychologists and psycholinguists, and also educationalists.
On the contrary, reading might occur without any essential intention if readers
read something that they have known previously (Urquhart and Weir, 1998).
6
Reading also has various scopes: creative act. interaction, interpretation.
social act and responding. Reading is a creative act because in reading we soak
up information, absorb details and are persuaded by what we read. How can
reading be an interaction? Sometimes when we read and encounter something
that is contradictory to our ideology, we might automatically resist the particular
idea. It is the nature of not wanting to be manipulated by others. We read in
order to comprehend. That is why reading is an interpretation. When we do
understand, it is because we can see the coherent facts and ideas through the
connected relationship. Interpretation is closely related to social context because
once we could interpret a reading, it means we understand its social context. In
reading,
readers can be influenced
through various strategies that eventually
lead us to realize what kind of text it is, for instance: a poem, short story, novel, a
play, an essay, article, etc. Reading is responding because once readers
interact with the materials, unconsciously we also react towards it. Most people
consequently think and hypothesize during the reading. When we read to seek
information, our natural responses would be: taking notes, unless we have
remarkable memory (Gould et al., 1990).
Skimming, search reading, scar.ning, careful reading, and browsing are
the different kinds of reading (Urquhart and Weir, 1998).
a. Skimming is the kind of reading that intend to achieve the main idea.
The
process itself does
not
accommodating the whole text.
focus
on
the
details
but
more
to
7
b. Search reading is to seek particular information in intention to ans\ver
set of questions, for instance: in completing task.
c. Scanning is the kind of specific reading which is to find very specific
goals, for example: numbers, names. specific words or phrases and so
on.
d.
Careful reading, favorable by educationalists and psychologists to aim
learning through reading, is more to master the majority of information
in the text. The readers are intended to be able to summarize the gist or
main idea of the text.
e. Browsing is the sort of reading where the goals are not well defined.
2. 2 Teaching Reading
Urquhart and Weir (1998) claimed that teaching reading to native students is
different from teaching reading to foreign students who study English as their
second language. It deals with the knowledge that already exists in native
students. For some cases this knowledge might need a little freshing-up by the
teacher in charge.
Teachers, who teach English as a second language, have faced many
obstacles.
One of them comes from the students who often experience
difficulties in learning reading and some of them might even get stuck with their
reading, for instance: as the level of English in the text may be higher than the
ability of the students.
For most children, the path of learning to read is not so easy;
substantial numbers of children find this path extremely difficult
8
[because it is not appropriate to their level]: some never complete it
at all (Beard, 1987: p.71).
As stated by Beard (1987) in his opinion of how the material might occur as an
obstacle:
appear to be a very wide-ranging and coherent set of
experiences, but there can be problems for children if one -pe of
experience is provided disproportionately (p. 73).
For some people, certain methods in teaching reading seem similar to
each other. However these methods have been applied successfully through
effective ways. A method works effectively if the application is well structured.
Hence, the application might take some time to complete.
Even so, the emphasis within the range of methods [reading], which
has been identified, can vary considerably. The stress can be on one
or more of these factors, although a comprehensive approach would
include specific attention to several, and perhaps all of them (ibid,
p. 72).
Teaching reading has various objectives. Some teachers emphasize on
the spelling and pronunciation
while others focus on the comprehension.
Teaching reading comprehension is quite questionable because most people
doubt whether comprehension is teachable (Pearson and Johnson, 1978). In this
thesis, the assumption will be clarified and showed as a mistake. Reading
comprehension is teachable, in fact directly. William R. Jones (Brumfit and
Benton, 1993) wrote his experience in using short poems as medium in teaching
reading, because he thought
students need a simpler medium (other than
articles, news, etc). Therefore, it is recommended for English teachers to help
their student in achieving comprehension in reading through providing hints,
questions, activities and feedback.
9
2. 2. 1 Assessment of comprehension
Urquhart and Weir (1998) show a case where a reading class is in
progress.
Some of the students in this particular
class ha\·e outstanding
pronunciation once they read, but if they are asked what the main idea of the
reading, they simply answer that they have no idea at all about the gist. On the
contrary, some students could have marvelous comprehension but weak in
decoding and single-word reading, as implied by Oakhill and Cain (Beech and
Singleton, 1997).
It must be the case that, in some intuitive sense, a reader must
process the grammar in the text in order to understand it ... the
evidence certainly does not support any claim
that one can
successfully understand text without granunatical abilities
(Alderson, 1990: p. 219).
Actually, comprehension is what happens to the readers during their
reading. When a reading process occurs, once the particular reader understand
what he or she reads, he or she might say "Sure, this makes sense to me!".
While on the contrary, when the reader does not understand a single thing he or
she might quit reading that instance (Pearson and Johnson, 1978).
As claimed by Urquhart
achieving
what
it
is
called
and Weir (1998), there are two doubts m
the
'ideal
comprehension'.
Firstly,
the
comprehension will never be perfectly reached since it is the nature of good
ideals never to be achieved. Secondly, an effort to reveal the author's intention
is not the aspect of all reading. Nevertheless, this opinion is quite contrast to
what Fry (1963) stated. He believed that students are capable of achieving one
hundred percent of comprehension.
10
Comprehension is much more interesting to many people who deal with
reading. Moreover, it is very essential for people who see reading as a serious
activity. Apparently, comprehension is the highest
peak to achieve in reading.
The sense of understanding in reading would not show up at once. However the
skill would be sharpened through frequent reading (Urquhart and Weir, 1998).
Additionally,
the
teacher's
view
towards
the
achievement of
comprehension is essential. Hence, the comprehension in teaching reading may
occur as either helpful or high-risk point. It is helpful if the process works as the
teacher expected, but somehow there is a possibility that teacher may miss out
some
points, such as: unclear
main idea that implied in texts (blur gist).
Therefore, the teacher is obligated to consider some possible obstacles that
might occur in the teaching process (Urquhart and Weir, 1998).
However,
teaching
and
testing
of
reading
may
have
serious
consequences towards the students. Urquhart and Weir (1998) mentioned that in
order to achieve the comprehension the students might appear with various
comprehensions regarding the material.
As stated by Bernhardt (1991), the important point in assessment is
measurement.
In
addition,
meaningfulness. When these
measurement
essential
deals
with
appropriateness
and
points successfully realized, then the
particular process would be valid.
In order to assess comprehension in reading, we must settle standards
that are used as a foundation to measure it as mentioned below.
11
Y'v .
a. The suitable test that is going to be used in measuring must fit '"ith
the students' base of knowledge in order to identify their interest and
their behavior towards the second language.
b. A good application of assessment must naturally adaptable. The
teachers are demanded to conduct
accessible
in transferring
Sometimes
the
individual
units
students
of
a valid test of reading that
the
mearung
face
senous difficulties
language
but
m understandable way.
in managing
somehow they are able to
understand.
c. The successful concept
include the interpretive
of assessing reading comprehension must
questions.
information in how students
These
questions
are about
get the text explicitly and implicitly
(Bernhardt, 1991).
Background knowledge and vocabulary
skill play important
role in
achieving comprehension in reading, so does syntactic skill, which is an ability
to create sentence meaning.
The ability to construct an opinion about something that is probably true
(caused by the information known before), is called inferring. Inferential skill is
also essential because it is closely related to background knowledge. The
students would never be able to infer if they have no knowledge to decide
whether something is true or not. The knowledge itself leads and guides them to
determine things (Beech and Singleton, 1997).
Inferring appears to be an essential part of human comprehension,
since texts, spoken or written, are never fully explicit (Short, 1989:
p. 94).
12
Why would inferential skill be important in achieving comprehension?
Supposing there is a case where reading process occurs. It is described in a
particular text that a boy goes to school but it is not explicitly written that he
rides a bicycle. It is written that he is extremely tired because he pedals all the
way until he reaches the school. Thus the inference question would be "How
does he get to school?". If the students comprehend the text, they would answer
"by bicycle". In order to answer that question, they must know that when riding
a bike you have to pedal, if not you will stand still, the bike will not run if you
do not pedal it. Practically, most of them answered "by bicycle" since they have
the inferential skill.
Indeed students use their inferential skill to discover meanings in new
words. Students often encounter new words in their reading. Can all the words
be familiarized only through their inferential skill? Does this block their way in
assessing comprehension? It actually
difficult that they cannot
depends on the words. Are the words
be guessed through the context of the sentence?
Teachers are suggested to give vocabulary instruction. This effectively helps
students in minimizing their difficulties in the reading process. There are also
some reports about the increase of reading comprehension score after teachers
have pre-taught vocabulary to the students, written by Oakhill and Cain (1996 in
Beech and Singleton, 1997).
Uncommon words may disrupt the flow of reading in several ways
this
additional processing can
resuh in
inadequate
comprehension of text because part of the passage may have been
forgotten and/or because there is insufficient cognitive capacity left
to complete comprehension processing (p. 187).
13
On the other hand, comprehension \vould be easier to achieve if most of
the words are common for the students. But it does not mean that all students
with
Jack of vocabulary are poor comprehenders. As Beech and Singleton
(1997) noted that reading comprehension and vocabulary support each other.
Good vocabulary knowledge may help in achieving reading comprehension and
the other way aroundcomprehension could assist in developing vocabulary.
2. 2. 2 Construction of the suitable lesson plan and activities
Recently, tasks and activities are varied and improving through times. It
is more focused on children interest, preference and also routines. As Beech and
Singleton (1997) mentioned:
... recent trends in assessing comprehension show a movement
away from more traditional, standardized measures to a less formal
approach, perhaps using assessments which can be integrated with
the children's everyday activities and tasks (p. 197).
Difficulties
are
often encountered
in
constructing
comprehension
questions. Also, regarding to the limited vocabulary knowledge, test makers
may
not
feel
free
to use
various synonyms varieties of word structures
(Bernhardt, 1991). Have this condition become an obstacle that
could block
students' vocabulary knowledge to becoming improved? There is a possibility
in solving this problem. Test
makers can still make comprehension questions
with various word construction and synonyms as long as the teachers conduct
pre-teaching before the reading process and doing the activities. Of course the
pre-teaching objective must
be
strictly related to the
new
synonyms and
constructions that are used in the particular activities. It would help the students
14
to learn new words and construction, and yet their comprehension would
develop. This essential point would be explained in details in chapter 3.
As intended
by Royer
(1987 in Beech and Singleton, 1997) about
developing reading, tests are possible to be used as diagnosis tools, to inform
the teacher that it is not just about whether a student has an excellent or weak
comprehension but it is more to giving further information about the student's
reading.
A lesson plan should be arranged to get conceptualized program m
teaching reading. The steps in the lesson plan would be very helpful for teachers
to teach reading comprehension orderly.
In order to get into the particular poem that is used as a medium in this
research, students need to be led to the context of the poem. It is not possible to
give the poem directly to the students because these children need to be warmed
up or be introduced about the particular poem, which is what Barnitz (1985)
says:
The less familiar readers are with the concepts or content of the
text, the more they will struggle to construct a meaning (p. 14).
One of the points that have been structured in the lesson plan in chapter
three
is reading the poem together with the students' choice of tones. This
particular
method
is based
on
the
most
comprehension in the UK, which is Neale
widely
used
test
of
reading
Analysis of Reading Ability. He
believed that this test is helpful in detecting specific comprehension problems
because comprehension can be assessed independently of the child's level of
single-word ability (Beech and Singleton, 1997).
15
Bernhardt (1991) stated
Questions
are
two
that that True/False Tests and Direct Content
among
many
various
models
of
testing
reading
comprehension. In this research, most of the statements in the true/false tests are
intended to check their comprehension skill, while the direct content questions
are more to the vocabulary skills and inferential skills. In direct content
questions, the question delimits
questions do not require perfect
the answer (ibid,
p.
199). Direct
content
and complete grammatical answers in this
particular research. Since it is intended to assess comprehension, then it would
be sufficient if the students' answers imply the comprehension towards the
questions and the related text (seep. 11 for the example).
Even with a short text, it is usually possible to devise a large
number of questions. The conventional ten questions, often
nmltiple-choice, which pass as a comprehension test, represent as
best a sampling of information gained by reading (Urquhart and
Weir, 1998: p. 86).
The questions do not always necessarily wh-questions that require (only)
long answers. Tag questions would do a great help in dealing with students'
comprehension (Pearson and Johnson, 1978). Yes-no questions are also familiar
in classroom discussions but rarely in tests. Nevertheless, yes-no questions
could
also be an important assistance in checking students' understanding
through the activities.
Tests should serve instruction, assisting us [English teachers] in
making more rational decisions. As long as we keep them in proper
perspective, they can be an asset to an effective reading program
(ibid, p. 221).
All of these
activities will not
be sufficient
if not supported by
discussion and feed back. As written by Pearson and Johnson (1978), this
16
essential point ts intended to clarify the activities m order to create
an
interaction with the students and to get funher explanation and information of
the answers in the activities.
2. 2. 3. Motivational approach
Students need to be motivated when they are learning. It is to lead them
to learn something by their own will, without any pressure. Students who are
forced to learn would be easily frustrated by what they are studying at the
moment.
Motivation comes from the Latin word movere, which means 'to move'
(Beech and Singleton, 1997). The word 'to move' is not a literary definition but
it has a meaning 'to encourage'. In conclusion, motivation is a process of
encouragement to achieve a certain phase of level.
Motivating and encouraging students are challenging tasks for teachers.
A number of teachers might think that they are just obligated to transfer the
particular
knowledge
without
considering
whether
the
knowledge
is
successfully accepted or not by the students. It is probably not an essential issue
if the condition of the particular class is in good shape, which is if all of the
students are fully enthusiastic and extremely excited about the lesson that is
going to be taught by the teachers. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is rarely
encountered.
The uniqueness of every individual pupil must be acknowledged
and accepted: every child is special (ibid, p. 172).
17
Hence, it is why teachers are highly recommended to get to know their
students in scope of their characteristics, interests, abilities and attitudes towards
common things such as: movies, music, etc. This motivational approach might
be very helpful for the teachers to choose a suitable technique to be applied in
their classes that have various types of students who have different interests and
abilities.
A
good
communication between
particularly in the teaching process, might
a
teacher
and
the
students,
be a help in creating a good
atmosphere in the class as a motivating approach. Once the teacher is able to
make a communicative interaction, the students would be comfortable of being
in the class. And, they will learn without carrying burden at their backs.
Students' interest influences their attitude also.
Attitude has been defined as 'learned predisposition to respond in a
consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to given
object' (Beech and Singleton, 1975: p. 16).
A communicative interaction between a teacher and the students does
not mean the students can be impolite and irrespective towards their teacher.
Indeed the teacher can play a role as a friend to his or her students, but perhaps
this approach might not be applied if most of the students are irritating. If this
particular case occurs, the teacher might need to be stricter and the students
need to get disciplined.
It would not be overstating the case to claim that success in the
classroom depends upon what the teacher has actively encouraged
and planned occur 'between' lessons (Walter, 1989: p.7)
Some students may find learning reading as a boring activity. They are
lazy once they see their teacher distributing copies of passages that they must
18
read. A research on development of children's reading attitudes and habits by
Davies and Brember (1995) in Beech and Singleton (1997) strengthened the fact
that age has an effect in children's anxiety in reading. These two researchers
took a random sample of six-selected elementary schools. Thirty percent of the
students were in the sixth grade. And in average their interest in reading was
lessen, as they grew older.
Another research (McKenna et al., 1995) was conducted to demonstrate
that recreational reading and school-related reading are different. Recreational
reading is for fun while school-related reading has purposes in achieving cenain
formal
targets, such
as mastering certain essential topics, pronunciation,
comprehension, etc. However, reading a piece of literature to achieve reading
comprehension might sound like a mixture of recreational reading and schoolrelated reading. It is possible to have a school-related reading in a less-stressed
way, as a matter of fact in a fun way. Students should see reading as an
interesting activity to add their knowledge, not as a boring and fiustrating thing
to do. As supported by Edward D. Allen in Grittner (1978):
The challenge to find ways of attracting students to our foreign
language classes and maintaining their interest once they arrive is a
problem that most .of our teachers are facing (p. 1).
In the process of teaching reading, the teachers have obligation in
accomplishing educational objectives. One of them is to assist students in giving
value and enjoying reading, and eventually encourage them to realize their own
responsibilities in learning to read (Beech and Singleton, 1997).
19
Children experiences in reading have a great deal of role. In the case
where a child has experienced failures and unaccepted existence, a child may
feel less enthusiastic in a reading lesson. Once they face a very attractive te:\.1,
they are automatically motivated and unconsciously read ·without being afraid of
failing and depressed in their reading (Beech and Singleton, 1997).
Teachers think that they could change their old handbook with the new
ones intentionally to attract students' interest, and yet they also use tricks and
visual aids to assist them, as written by Edward D. Allen in Grittner (1978).
Nevertheless, a good
effective
approaches (motivation
and
aid can be combined
with psychological
encouragement, as mentioned
earlier)
in the
application.
The tasks and the activities to check students' comprehension are
perhaps a problem for teachers because it might decrease students' motivation.
Hence, teachers need to acknowledge the students that the activities are meant
to help them not to punish them (Grittner, 1978).
Praise has a big effect on students. It is proven from two experimental
groups conducted by Gritner (1978). After these groups had their first test, they
were treated differently. The first group was told that they had done a
remarkable job while the second group was told that their score were bad. Then,
in the next test, the first group was successfully improved their scores while on
the other hand the second group did not show any improvement. This fact
proves that praise is also one of the effective ways to motivate students.
20
Interest is closely related to motivation. In fact it has already existed in
each student. Pearson and Johnson (1978) stated that it is much more easier for
students to comprehend what they read if the particular te:o."t attract them in some
ways.
And we suggest that one way to improve comprehension of a given
topic is to generate student interest in that topic through a variety of
means - filmstrips, movies, field strips, other books, community
resource persons (p. 13).
2. 3 The Poetry
Poetry is known as the art of writing poems, as quoted from Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English. This particular dictionary also stated that
poetry is the plural form ofpoem (poems). Poem is a piece ofwriting that has a
patterned form of lines and sounds, which often rhyme (Leahy: 1963). Poem
expresses many things (thoughts, emotions and experiences) that could bring up
our excitement, which eventually ignites our imagination.
Poems are often difficult to understand. At a glance, poems might be
complicated and sophisticated in the form (Marsh, 1995).
Most English speakers end up feeling at least indifferent to, and
sometimes even alienated by, the sight of a poem on a page
(Roberts, 1986: p. 16).
In general, regular poems have stanzas. Stanza is a part of poems that
consists of thought and form (Leahy, 1963). The number of lines they contain
identifies stanzas. It is common in children's poetry to have only a stanza.
Poetry usually consists of rhymes, rhythm, meter, and other poetry
elements (Roberts, 1986). These particular elements might be unfamiliar for
21
common people. Despite this fact, common people are still able to enjoy poetry
in someway without knowing the essential elements of it. According to Brown
{1977 in Roberts, 1986), rhythm is the guide to the structure of information in
the spoken message. While 'meter' is the panern stressed syllables formed in a
line of poetry {Leahy, 1963).
For the purpose of this thesis, I would discuss 'rhymes' further although
'meter' is actually used in the research but not too exact and specific. Rhyme is
when words or lines have similar sounds at the end (Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English,
2001). Rhyme
(for
instance: "bad" and "dad") is
actually what makes poetry interesting. The repeating sounds that are similar at
he end of words or lines arouse a certain feeling of excitement.
Despite the above elements, many people surprisingly enjoy reading
poetry. Additionally, not only adults who enjoy poetry but children do to. In
fact, children poetry is favorable for children. Usually children poetry is simpler
than poetry for adults. Moreover, children poetry is not written only by adult
poets but also by children.
According to Brumfit and Benton (1993), children's poetry generally
can be divided into three
specific categories: poetry for the 6-9 age range,
poetry for the 10-12 age range, and teenage/young adult poetry.
2. 4 Children's poetry as an appropriate medium
Children are usually so sensitive when they hear sounds. In fact, babies
in their early childhood often hear voices, that is why they tend to make sounds
22
from simple syllables, such as "da-da", "ta-ta'', and so on. Regarding to the fact
that babies make sound from simple syllable, children are very attached to what
it is called as sounds and words (Roberts, 1986). A statement by Walter (1989)
has also supported the fact:
A sympathy for poetry begins very early in life. Babies find
pleasure in playing with sound even before they start to speak (p.
6).
At the first sight, children's poetry in the foreign language is perhaps too
difficult for children {Maley and Duff, 1989). But on the contrary, children's
poetry arouses children's excitement and anxiety because it can entertain them
through its rhymes and humor could catch their attention. Moreover, poetry can
touch our personal feelings in a close way. Personal feelings are essential in
learning a foreign language as it is in our own language (Maley and Moulding,
1985).
If carefully selected, poems can open up themes which are conunon
to us all whatever our cultural background, and can thus act as a
powerful stimulus to the students' own reflecting thinking, which
will lead to more mature and fruitful group discussion (p. 135).
The use of poetry as a medium in teaching a foreign language has been a
controversial issue. Poetry is considered to be an old-fashioned method and not
relevant to students' need (Maley and Moulding, 1985). What makes poetry
better than news articles, short story, sports reports, advertisements, labels and
others? Teaching materials are often serious in the content, for instance news
articles and long passages. Hence, the students will automatically have less
interest in learning reading (Maley and
Duff: 1989). First of all, the aim of
teaching reading comprehension must be achieved. In order to achieve the
23
particular objective, English teachers should provide e:tie....""tive media. Regarding
to the various ways that are used by teachers, the condition of the particular
class should be considered.
Actually, poetry is almost similar to any other
medium because poetry is unified with other forms of l ouage. And yet, poetry
is a piece of literature that needs to be appreciated.
Poetry offers a rich resource for input to language learning. As such
it is as relevant as the more commonly accepted pes of input e.g. contrived dialogues, isolated texts for reading comprehension,
simulations, etc (ibid, p. 7).
The rhymes in poetry allow the students to remember the particular
poetry unconsciously without realizing that they are actually studying. Not to
mention the interesting and attractive poems which are provided in chapter 3.
Focusing on poems that are funny, the process of teaching would be easier. It is
definite that the poems must be accessible for the students, particularly fifth
grade elementary students concerning the object of this thesis.
While we would not wish to lay stress on the conscious
memorization of poetry, it would be a pity not to take advantage of
this natural ability to unconsciously absorb language through poetry
(ibid, p. 11).
Another
advantage
of poetry is that it could enrich the students'
vocabulary (Maley and Duff,
1989). New words might appear in poems,
particular words might sound unfamiliar to the students' ears. Therefore it is a
must for teachers to inform the meaning while doing so; to expand the
vocabulary. For instance: the new word in a poem is "lonely", the teacher can
add "alone" and make a comparison or connection between the two.
24
Poetry is a
language in
collocations,
ways, and so
par excellence the medium . . . All poets stretch the
this way: by coining new words, creating new
experimenting with sound. using old words in new
on (p. 9).
The process of teaching reading, which involves children's poetry as a
suitable medium, is not conducted as simple as it is. On the contrary, it needs a
construction of an appropriate teaching plan (Walter, 1989). Before getting into
the poetry, teachers should do wanning-up to lead the students (Maley and
Moulding, 1985). The warming up could be in forms of building the context
through leading questions and pictures. Students, who hear their friends or
teachers reading aloud, would experience an increase in their comprehension
(Walter, 1989). Indeed, the reading by teachers should be attractive in meaning:
do the reading by using interesting tones (Brumfit and Benton, 1993). Focusing
on the poems with funny characters and humor, children have well responds
towards the particular poems. Another step in the teaching plan is to re-read the
particular poem.
With children it is particularly evident that the enthusiasm for
reading a poem is derived from a commitment to re-reading it; this
is so for private reading and for reading aloud to companions. Much
of the pleasure of reading lies in the knowledge that we can re-read.
Therefore we are wise if we try to harness children's love of
collecting to their developing interest in poetry (Walter, 1989: p. 7).
Hence, when these phases have been done the context would familiarize the
students and relate them to the particular poem.