NOT INTO HUMANITIES, NOR INTO NUMBERS

USING POETRY TO CONNECT ENGLISH TO MATH

Abstract

This experience report presents an interdisciplinary project carried out in a bilingual school. The didactic sequence was developed jointly by the English language and mathematics subjects, both taught in English, with students in the eighth and ninth year of Middle School. As content common to both teaching plans, the metrics of different poems in English were explored. When students are reading/writing them, they have the opportunity to recognize individual sounds and the stress of words – crucial elements to ensure intelligibility in pronunciation (DERWING & MUNRO, 2015). The meter of poems (their syllabic patterns) can be explored in mathematical equations. The project activities also proved to be good differentiation practices in the classroom. It is possible to use poetry as a resource so that students who are more comfortable with English can study mathematics from another perspective. At the same time, those students with greater ease in solving equations were able to approach the textual genre of poetry from another approach.