A Poetry Programme for 4th Grade Pupils of Portuguese Primary Education

Abstract

Considering that the value of poetry arises from the responses elicited in readers by the specific characteristics of this type of text – the literariness –, this paper calls for a pedagogic approach aimed at promoting the three levels of reader response: foregrounding, defamiliarization and transformation of concepts and feelings. This was the basis for devising a programme aimed to promote such kind of response. Through a quasi-experimental design, three conditions were created with 9 teachers and 158 4th grade pupils. Pupils that followed the programme obtained the best results in the fundamental aspect of literariness termed transformation of concepts and feelings. Pupils who read the texts but that did not follow the programme did not show any improvement compared to a group of pupils who followed the curricular guidelines. These results could indicate that pupils’ mere exposure to poetry without further instructions is not enough to trigger adequate responses.