Engaging the Poet : exploring poetry through creativity and criticality in English secondary education.

Poetry, once seen as the only form of creativity, is a valuable part of the English lesson, yet the way in which it is taught is often criticised due to the pedestrian way of unpicking the poem, rather than looking at it as a vehicle for expressing creative and critical thought. Poetry is open to interpretation and reinterpretation, and therefore lends itself well to being read in a variety of contexts. Furthermore, by looking at a poem from various angles new meanings can be discovered, offering more depth and purpose to poetry reading and analysing. By looking at how creativity and criticality can be defined and how these concepts relate to poetry, the aim is to explore how poetry can be used as a tool for inviting dialogue in the classroom. Moreover, it explores how a dialogic way of learning poetry invites looking beyond what is already known