While I love teaching poetry, the enthusiasm for deconstructing meaning in poems isn’t always reciprocated by my classes.

After having a similar approach to teaching poetry over the years, I wanted to trial something more innovative; to allow my Year 7 students to see poets as people with similar experiences to their own, and to see what inspires people to write their feelings in the form of poetry. 

So, inspired by an idea from a colleague who taught fiction through characters living as neighbours on a street, I created The Culture Cafe.

Rather than explaining to the class that we would be studying a different poem every week, I told them that they were now staff in a café - a café that welcomed people from different cultures from all around the world.

I created the branding, showed them an image of a busy café and introduced them to our customers by placing pictures of the poets we would be studying sat at different tables with their coffees (poorly photoshopped, but it did the job!).

A place to discuss poetry

The premise of The Culture Café is that students see the poets as real people with real problems - in this case, linked to culture.

They are introduced to the poets as customers who have come to them for advice; for example, Sujata Bhatt wants advice on how to appreciate her mother tongue when she has moved to a completely new country that only speaks English

Students discuss the issue, relate it to their own experience and offer advice. Once they have empathised, they are introduced to the poem that our customer has written, in this case, Search for my Tongue.

John Agard also “joined” for a coffee in The Culture Café, having experienced racism from people using the term “half-caste”. This prompted a lively discussion on the words we use when referring to people from different countries or cultures and the impact they can have.

We then analysed his poem Half-Caste and his use of imperatives and enjambment to demonstrate his emotions. Students engaged well with the poem and empathised with his experience.

We also welcomed John Agard’s wife, Grace Nichols, and discussed how one might feel moving from a tropical island to a large city like London. Living in Dubai, this was something a few of the students had personally experienced so they felt they could relate to the poem Island Man.

Why it works

This introduction allows the students to appreciate the inspiration behind the poem and to analyse the deeper meaning, offering insight as to how the use of caesura or enjambment might reflect Bhatt’s frame of mind whilst writing or even picking up on particular points that she might want to emphasise.

Students feel that they are able to connect with the poet on a more personal level and can then use this understanding of the writing process to create their own poems based on their personal experience.

As they become more used to critiquing the work of the poets, they develop the skills to offer feedback to their peers in class on the poems that they have written - asking important questions like, “What inspired you to write about this topic?”, “How can you show that you are feeling confused here?” and “What would be the effect of writing that line in the other language that you speak?”

Not only did this approach to teaching poetry allow for a deeper understanding of the poetry-writing process, but it also seamlessly linked to other writing skills.

Wider writing skills

When introduced to the poet’s personal issues linked to culture, the students were writing to advise. After studying the poems, we moved on to a new transactional writing scheme of work where they became “brand managers” for the café and designed their own marketing campaigns, allowing them to write to persuade. They introduced new offers to the customers using the skills of writing to inform.

Overall, by teaching poetry through this concept, students were able to see the real-life application of their learning and subsequently their engagement in the lessons flourished.

For the first time, students were doing extra work at home to promote The Culture Café - one child even asked everyone in the class which country they were from and created a menu with three items of food from everybody’s home country.

The students felt a sense of pride in their café; they wanted to understand their customers and the motivation behind their writing, whilst contributing their own poetry that they could share with their fellow workers.

But most importantly, my enthusiasm for deconstructing poetry is finally reciprocated by my class!

Emma Sanderson is head of English at Hartland International School in Dubai and has taught internationally for six years. She tweets @emmanaomi