NOW YOU HEAR ME: CONTEXTUALISED POETRY IN ENHANCING LITERACY AND CHARACTER BUILDING

Abstract

Contextualised poetry is a powerful tool which catapults English literacy and instills moral values and principles to learners. This is a qualitative study conducted in a senior high school of a district in Quirino province. This study uncovered the character-building themes and moral reflections of eleventh graders’ close analysis of Now You Hear Me: a contextualised poem used as an English learning resource in teaching literary analysis in the subject 21^st Century Literature from the Philippines and the world. Optimising thematic analysis in uncovering the prevalent themes from the 54 learners’ outputs, results unravelled five emergent character-building themes which are responsibility, moral awakening, accountability, empathy, and self-discipline. These themes resonate a profound and ethical engagement of learners into ecological constraints, which are also viewed as moral imperatives. Through this learning experience, students begin to live with moral virtues, a pivotal element in building a holistic learner that is socially aware, morally upright and environmentally responsible individual. Thus, this study recommends English language teachers to develop contextualised learning resources such as environmental poetry to enhance writing literacy and promote character building.