Blog Exploring Emotion and Tone in Poetry: A Guide for Teachers (with example)
By Ross | Poetry, Teachers, Top Tips, Writing Tips
Emotions and tone play a crucial role in poetry and can greatly impact a reader's understanding and connection to the piece.
For teachers, incorporating the use of emotions and tone in poetry can provide an opportunity to engage pupils and support their understanding of both language and feelings.
In this blog, we will explore the benefits of using emotions and tone in poetry and provide tips on how teachers can effectively incorporate this into their lesson plans.
By encouraging your pupils to explore their own emotions and those of others through poetry, teachers can help foster emotional intelligence. This includes the ability to understand and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of others. Through writing poetry, your pupils can reflect on their own experiences, thoughts and feelings, which can help them develop empathy and compassion for others.
The use of emotions and tone in poetry can also help your pupils develop critical thinking skills. They will need to carefully consider the words they choose and how they convey emotions and tone. This can help your pupils learn to analyse and interpret language, which is a valuable skill in reading and writing.
Incorporating the use of emotions and tone in poetry can also have cross-curricular benefits. For example, a lesson on emotions and tone in poetry can be linked to the study of emotions in psychology, the use of figurative language in language arts, or the exploration of music and sound in music class.
To help your pupils understand how emotions and tone are used in poetry, start by sharing model poems. This can include well-known poets such as Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, or Shel Silverstein, or contemporary poets such as Rupi Kaur or Warsan Shire. By studying these poems, your pupils can see how emotions and tone are conveyed through language, form, and structure.
Encourage your pupils to write about their own experiences and emotions. This can help them connect with their own feelings and understand the emotions and tone of others. Keeping a diary and free writing can be an effective way to start this process, allowing your pupils to explore their emotions without feeling pressured to produce a polished piece.
There are a variety of poetic techniques that can be used to convey emotions and tone, including figurative language, imagery, and sound devices. Encourage your pupils to experiment with these techniques in their own writing. For example, they might try writing a poem that only uses metaphors to express emotions, or one that uses alliteration to create a specific tone.
Class discussions are a great way to help your pupils understand emotions and tone in poetry. Encourage your pupils to share their own poems and discuss the emotions and tone they were trying to convey. This can also provide an opportunity for peer feedback and constructive criticism.
Here is an example that you can use to help show the difference between a poem with and without tone! (Show don’t tell?)
The River
The water flows
From the mountains high
To the sea below
It never stops
Its journey to go
From source to shore
It flows forevermore
The Tearful River
The water trickles down
From the peaks above
Winding its way to the ground
It never rests
Its journey full of love
From the heart of the hills
It flows with sorrowful spills
Carrying memories, it cannot bear
To the embrace of the sea with care
In the first poem, the language is straightforward and describes the physical characteristics of a river. The second poem, however, adds emotional and tonal elements by using words like "tearful" and "sorrowful" to convey the feeling of sadness and sorrow associated with the river's journey.
The poem also uses a metaphor of the river as tears, which further emphasizes the emotional tone. The addition of emotion and tone makes the poem more impactful and creates a deeper connection with the reader.
As a teacher, you can use this exercise to show to your pupils how the addition of emotional and tonal elements can enhance a poem. You can ask your pupils to write their own versions of a simple poem, adding in emotion and tone, to see how it changes the impact of their writing. This can also be a great way to introduce the concept of figurative language, such as metaphors and similes, as your pupils explore different ways to convey emotion in their writing.
Here are some of the previous poetry contest winners in action:
Incorporating the use of emotions and tone in poetry can provide a wealth of benefits for your pupils, from developing emotional intelligence to improving critical thinking skills. By providing opportunities for your pupils to explore their own emotions and those of others, teachers can help their pupils develop a deeper appreciation for language and empathy for others.
Whether through writing in a diary, reading model poems, or experimenting with poetic techniques, there are many ways to effectively incorporate the use of emotions and tone in poetry into the classroom.
Until next time, thanks for reading!
Published: Fri 17th Feb 2023