Demonstration Class 2025 #4 – Creative Approaches to Teaching Poetry

The fourth Demonstration Class of 2025 was conducted by Mr. Arun U., Assistant Professor at Mahe Co-operative College of Teacher Education. On 9 August 2025, he handled the poem “To Sleep” by William Wordsworth using an innovative and interactive strategy.

Instead of introducing it directly as a textbook lesson, he began with a newspaper activity, asking students to locate news items connected with the theme of sleep. He then linked this to a mock email—a creatively designed piece in which a “friend” described his sleeplessness at night. The content of this email, in fact, was drawn from Wordsworth’s poem.

This imaginative approach helped the students discover the poem in a surprising and engaging way, while highlighting the possibilities of contextual and activity-based teaching of poetry.