In teaching poetry, one of the first problems to be addressed is the lack of appropriate schemata when studying English and American poetic texts. The current study inquires about the students’ perception regarding how Saudi students perceive the relationship between the lack of appropriate schemata and the comprehension of English and American poetry to explain how they read and interpret poems in English and how they respond to the culturally loaded texts by writers with different cultural schemata to provide a greater understanding of the challenges they face in the poetry classroom. The study also examines students’ openness to schema activation techniques within the poetry classroom. A qualitative and quantitative research study has been conducted in three undergraduate classrooms at King Saud University. The research included open questions and questionnaire data obtained over a one year period (2018-2019) from 51 students. The results show that Saudi students’ are very much aware of the problematic issues in their reading and believe social and cultural ideologies have a significant influence on comprehension based on their individual experience. Only a third of the respondents do not find social and cultural ideologies and references to be problematic. Furthermore, 49% of the respondents feel that having a different background affects their ability to identify with the poems. The study also showed that students are open to incorporating schema activating techniques to improve their comprehension of English and American poetry.

In teaching poetry, one of the first problems to be addressed is the lack of appropriate schemata when studying English and American poetic texts. The current study inquires about the students' perception regarding how Saudi students perceive the relationship between the lack of appropriate schemata and the comprehension of English and American poetry to explain how they read and interpret poems in English and how they respond to the culturally loaded texts by writers with different cultural schemata to provide a greater understanding of the challenges they face in the poetry classroom. The study also examines students' openness to schema activation techniques within the poetry classroom. A qualitative and quantitative research study has been conducted in three undergraduate classrooms at King Saud University. The research included open questions and questionnaire data obtained over a one year period (2018-2019) from 51 students. The results show that Saudi students' are very much aware of the problematic issues in their reading and believe social and cultural ideologies have a significant influence on comprehension based on their individual experience. Only a third of the respondents do not find social and cultural ideologies and references to be problematic. Furthermore, 49% of the respondents feel that having a different background affects their ability to identify with the poems. The study also showed that students are open to incorporating schema activating techniques to improve their comprehension of English and American poetry.

This study analyses The Rural Lass by Catherine Jemmat (1714-66); the poem will shine a new light on a feminist agenda conveyed through Jemmat’s views through the persona of the rural lass by linking the lass’ own experience with marriage. Challenges in a patriarchal society among female poets in the early ages and before the twenty-first century deserve appreciation for their contributions to early feminist literature. The author will illustrate how Jemmat negotiated her ambitions despite the cultural restrictions that were placed upon her during the 18th century through a rural persona. Jemmat skillfully creates a light-hearted poem, but also one that reflects the determined voice of a speaker who refuses to allow others to dictate her life. Jemmat seems to achieve this in The Rural Lass, as she subtly challenges the parental and societal objections that could often, as in Jemmat’s case, prevent the marriage of a loving couple. This article will study through the feminist literary criticism, that closer analysis of the variations within the metrical composition and of the poetic features in The Rural Lass shows that a deeper level of meaning can be achieved. The structured reasoning ensures that the rural lass appears rational and justly defiant. This paper also explores how a close study of the text allows for the emergence of the admirable spirit of the figure of the rural lass that expresses challenges in a patriarchal society, an eighteenth-century British feminist that has been criticized by her community.

This study analyses The Rural Lass by Catherine Jemmat (1714-66); the poem will shine a new light on a feminist agenda conveyed through Jemmat’s views through the persona of the rural lass by linking the lass’ own experience with marriage. Challenges in a patriarchal society among female poets in the early ages and before the twenty-first century deserve appreciation for their contributions to early feminist literature. The author will illustrate how Jemmat negotiated her ambitions despite the cultural restrictions that were placed upon her during the 18th century through a rural persona. Jemmat skillfully creates a light-hearted poem, but also one that reflects the determined voice of a speaker who refuses to allow others to dictate her life. Jemmat seems to achieve this in The Rural Lass, as she subtly challenges the parental and societal objections that could often, as in Jemmat’s case, prevent the marriage of a loving couple. This article will study through the feminist literary criticism, that closer analysis of the variations within the metrical composition and of the poetic features in The Rural Lass shows that a deeper level of meaning can be achieved. The structured reasoning ensures that the rural lass appears rational and justly defiant. This paper also explores how a close study of the text allows for the emergence of the admirable spirit of the figure of the rural lass that expresses challenges in a patriarchal society, an eighteenth-century British feminist that has been criticized by her community.

This paper reports a case study that explores ways to improve Saudi students’ engagement with poetry in English by providing them with alternative opportunities to analyse and express themselves using technology and multimedia. It is a strategic implementation of a culturally appropriate pedagogy that utilises visual language to interpret poems in English. Independently constructing their own videos provided students with a chance to replace traditional written interpretations of poems in the classroom. Allowing L2 students to communicate and express emotions visually gives them access to their creative potential, from which they can construct more meaningful interpretations. This supports the concept of no wrong answers in the reading and analysis of poetry and allows the students to create an exploratory relationship towards reading poetry. This is important for Saudi students in particular since they are not as proficient in written English as native English students. This article also reports the students’ perceptions to determine the effectiveness of visual poetry as an alternative to written analysis of poetry. I investigate the relationship between poetry and pedagogy to allow for individualised attempts to present a particular framework as a medium for studying poetry. The study showed, through their personalised videos, that Saudi students are open to using technology and multimedia that liberate them from traditional teaching techniques and allow them to unlock their interpretive skills and represent their interpretations in original ways. These findings might also have greater relevance to wider debates on extending the use of technology and multimedia as a key element for educators hoping to engage L2 students with reading and responding to poetry in English.