Discuss and analyse a poem

Generally when asked to analyse a poem, students feel overwhelmed and feel at a loss in the face of this 'abstract' challenge that they are asked to do. I think it's very important to establish an empathic connection here and demonstrate that you are willing to create a bridge between yourself as the tutor (who is an expert in the field) and the student (who does not have the specific intellectual tools to be at ease with a challenge such as this one). I always start off my tuitions by explaining that learning to analyse and discuss literature is a bit like learning a new language; there are new patterns to train your mind to identify, new ways to consider a word you come across, and a new sense of freedom that you need to embrace and run with in order to explore and brainstorm ideas to construct an overall argument about a text! I would start by choosing a poem and read it together with the student, ask them what they think the overall theme is, what the title might suggest, what vibe they get from it, how it makes them feel as a reader, exploring and familiarising ourselves with the text. Next I might provide some examples about what certain lines, words, structural elements indicate in order to illustrate and model the kind of thinking I want them to be slowly adopting. The activity I would do then is to ask the student to give me a presentation of the poem by selecting three key things to talk about (this can involve the overall themes), basically as if we could write down three paragraphs about this poem and develop them with examples and analysis (here I would introduce the Point-Evidence-Explain concept of analysis). We can then continue to discuss this together and develop the activity together, doing some research, reflecting out loud, and constructing a mini essay with my help (again, to model the type of work that would be expected of them!). I would hope that a lesson like this would begin to introduce the learner to the language of analysis, what it means to analyse, and how to be fluent in it!