Distant Dreams: A Selection of English Poems

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Distant Dreams is an innovatively constructed anthology designed to turn undergraduate students into perceptive readers of poetry by helping them make reasoned speculations about a text, by helping them to make a text-based argument and by helping them understand the finer shades of meaning encoded into a poem. Students are also encouraged through all the stages of reading to speculate, since competent reading is based on hypotheses formation and testing, necessitating going back to the text repeatedly. The introduction and About the poet section help them speculate and introspect on the text to help them arrive at and formulate an interpretation of a poem and to support that interpretation by providing logically valid reasons. The During reading Discussion points help them put together a well-constructed analysis of the poem. These points not only elicit their basic understanding of what is there, but also lead to an ongoing construction of meaning of the poem, along with the poet. The Questions for writing section derives from the discussion section so that the students writing becomes coordinated and organised. Each section focuses on theme, genre, versification and use of poetic devices peaking gradually to fit to each level culminating in the questions for writing where all these are to be used concurrently.

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Kalyani Samantray is an Associate Professor at Utkal University, Odisha where she teaches English literature, linguistics and ELT. She is also a teacher-educator and textbook writer for various levels for different state governments and the NCERT, New Delhi. She has published extensively in India and abroad. Her current interests are Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), young learners and materials production.