(Poem by Bertolt Brecht)
How to teach?
The classroom process for the teaching of the poem in the cognitive paradigm is shown below. This plan for face-to-face teaching is for three hours in three days. Level expected is the first-degree students who learn English Language and Literature as an optional.
1. Objectives of teaching the lesson:
a) Students make an attempt to write a poem on par with the emotion that the poet had while his books were burned
b) They analyze the poem so as to appreciate it.
c) They trace the history and environment against which the poem was written by the poet.
2. Materials required:
Blank sheets of paper, bold marker, mobile/laptop with the net connection, LCD projector.
3. The poem
When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he'd been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fierce letters to the morons in power —
Burn me! He wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!
(Translated by Michael R. Burch)
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.
Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he'd been excluded!
He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fierce letters to the morons in power —
Burn me! He wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!
(Translated by Michael R. Burch)
Day one (one hour)
For a moment shall we imagine something like this?
You are a writer.
You write poems, stories, and essays.
You publish your creations.
You have thousands of readers who wait for your creations.
Through your creations, you question certain misbeliefs and taboos.
Through your creations, you challenge political parties.
You are a writer with democracy as your philosophy.
You criticise governmental policies detrimental to the well-being of the people
Automatically you are a pain in the neck of the government and political parties
They burn your books and poems in a ceremony to disgrace you.
Someway you came to know about the function of burning your books.
You rush to the scene to watch it.
You look at that scene.
What you could see was a heart-breaking scene of people burring your books.
They are celebrating the burning of books.
Photo credit https://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/bertolt-brecht-the-burning-of-the-books-bad-time-for-poetry-reading-the-paper-while-brewing-the-tea/
Look at the photograph.
The crowd is burning the books.
(After a pause teacher asks)
Can you transcribe your emotions on a sheet of paper?
When they get ready to write their emotions, teacher interacts;
I expect two or three stanzas from you;
Teacher shows the plan of stanzas on the board as follows;
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
Let them take 15 – 20 minutes to write the stanzas.
After the first attempt, the teacher asks them to edit or refine the lines.
They refine the lines.
Teacher distributes blank sheets to the students.
They write the fair of the stanzas.
They complete the fair and the teacher collects the sheets from them, teacher says;
Look, these are your poems.
We bind the pages now to make a ‘book’.
Teacher staples the pages and asks;
The poem book is ready, don’t we want a name for this collection?
They suggest names to the book.
From several names, the class decides one, and that name is assigned to the book.
One student writes the title using a bold marker.
Shall have a function in the class inaugurating this book.
Teacher initiates to write an agenda.
Who will be the chairperson of the meeting?
Who will welcome the audience?
Who will vote thanks?
The class conducts the meeting.
The poem book is sent to the library.
Day 2 (one hour)
Yesterday you wrote a poem.
It was with almost the same emotions that had been shared by a poet.
There is a poem for you to learn.
Take out your mobiles and search the poem.
The Burning of the Books
(By Bertolt Brecht)
Teacher shows them the original poem in German language, on the screen.
(Though German is unfamiliar to them, let them make a rude attempt to read and understand. The purpose is to see the original poem in the German language, not to teach German)
Now search for an English translation.
They search the internet for any translation.
Teacher shows the translation of Michael R. Burch and says;
This is one translation, there can be other translations.
Now try to read the poem to write the summary.
They make an attempt to read the poem.
There are certain unfamiliar or new words for you.
Or, there are certain words familiar, but you don’t understand the inner meaning.
Please underline the words unfamiliar to you.
They underline the unfamiliar words.
Sometimes, your friends can help you to get at the meaning.
Ask them for their help.
They discuss the contextual meaning of the new words.
If the friends fail, get the meaning from any web dictionary.
They take the mobile to get at the meaning of the new words.
(Following can be the unfamiliar words for those who have English as the second or third language in their education)
Dull oxen (here a figurative use)
Contemptuous
Excommunicated
Enraged
Morons
Wrath
Now the barriers of new words are over.
Write the summary of the poem in a paragraph.
They write the summary as a homework.
Also, you read different web pages to understand the days and environment against which Brecht wrote the poem in Germany.
Day 3 (one hour)
They exchange the summary of the poem with others.
Two or three are presented in the whole class.
The writer is emotional and angry.
He felt he was burned.
But the story has a twist.
What is the twist?
That event made the poet angry.
What is that event?
Through examining the lines, they make an attempt to find out that particular line of the twist.
Ask your friends about their idea.
Two or three express their idea.
Yes, that is the reason;
The poet came with a protest in his mind to see the burning of books.
But when he enquired he understood that his books were excluded from burning.
This was shocking to him, he is excluded from the list.
Read, what happens after that?
They read the remaining lines of the poem.
What happens after that?
Yes, he rushes into his room and takes the pen.
The pen is always the sword of the writer.
He scribbles his rage into words.
Read the last three or four lines of the poem.
They read the lines attentively.
Suppose, this poem is a story.
The story means, some events in a sequence.
What are the events presented in the poem?
Look, the poet is the only character visible here.
What are the events?
They try to enlist the events.
Teacher shows the following model to write the list of events.
1. ……………………………………………..
2. ……………………………………………..
3. ……………………………………………..
4. In an anger he writes some lines.
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They complete the list and present it to the whole class.
The poet was spitting fire onto the paper.
What are the harsh words of the poet?
Can you imagine the raging face of the poet?
Take your pencil to draw his turbulent face and body?
They draw the angry poet.
What is the reason for his anger?
They read the poem once again.
They discuss the reason with their friends.
The reason is clear from the sixth line of the poem.
Yes, the poet has been excluded from the list.
Why should he be dissatisfied with the exclusion?
Students try to say their arguments.
Yes, as a writer he wished to be included in the ‘hit list’.
But the regime has excluded him from the list.
He felt that it was a clear disgrace to him.
Books of Karl Marx, Helen Keller, Sigmund Freud, H.G. Wells and sixty others were burned.
As writers, their commitment to the society has been approved.
With the burning of books by the government, they have been glorified.
The poet dreamed of such an ending.
But his books had been excluded.
This is the real reason for his rage.
That is the twist of the story, as well as the poem.
Have you heard any quotes on the power of books?
Here is one;
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
–Joseph Brodsky
Quote credit https://ebookfriendly.com/best-quotes-books-reading/
Please say the meaning of the quote.
Shall I show you one more quote?
‘Let us remember, one book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world’
Guess the author of the quote.
If you can’t guess, search and find out.
Books are most powerful agents of social change.
Find some more similar quotes.
They search as many quotes as they can related to the theme of the poem.
They present certain quotes and try to define the quotes.
Now we complete the analysis of the poem of Bertolt Brecht.
I have the one more question.
What are the messages of the poem to the readers?
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