Looking back, looking forward

Congratulations! You’ve reached the end of Week 1! You’ve been exploring feelings, patterns and puzzles and reflecting on how using these techniques to analyse a poem helps you to better understand what it might mean to you.You’ve also heard from our students and Rebecca in our round table discussions, where you uncovered new and unexpected meanings in ‘Patagonia’ using a shared set of techniques when looking at the same poem.We hope this week has built your knowledge and confidence in reading poetry, and you now feel equipped with tools to apply these techniques to your own study of close reading. If you’re feeling confident, repeat this process with another poem of your choice from The Poetry Foundation and practise, practise, practise!

Looking back

We’d like for you to take a few minutes to reflect on what you learned this Week and answer some, or all the following questions within the discussion area below:

• Which aspect of the week have you found the most interesting?
• Is there anything you want to know more about?
• What do you plan to do with your newly acquired knowledge?
• Have you used what you have learned in unexpected ways, in or outside the course?

Looking forward

In Week 2 you’ll be investigating how reading and writing poetry go hand-in-hand by exploring the creative process.

• You’ll hear from poet, novelist and critic, Professor Peter Robinson, share his own creative processes of writing and sharing poetry.
• You’ll also watch and learn from the poet, Kate Clanchy, who wrote ‘Patagonia’. Kate will be sharing ideas and strategies for how to start writing, and how to shape poetry.
• Through workshop exercises, you’ll start, shape and finish your own poem, which will be called The View from Here’.
• You’ll also be able to share your poem with other Learners and use the tools you gained this week to give and receive feedback, and to improve your writing.

In the next Step, you’ll consider different ways of expressing of creativity. If you can’t wait to get started, take a look at the following questions and share your answers in Step 2.1:How, when and where are you at your most creative? What do you gain from it? Are there forms of creativity that you’d like to practise in the future??