6.3.6 Criticising and evaluating a poem
While the teacher would not expect to undertake formal analysis of poems at the primary level, older children can be encouraged to add to their subjective responses and look at poems more objectively. Many of the websites given below (6.5) ask for children's views on the poems they publish, and Benton and Fox in Teaching literature: Nine to fourteen suggest some questions which teachers could use if and when they judge their students are ready. These invite "the reader both to attend to the words and to frame and value the individuality of his (sic) own response." (1985, p.24). They are as follows:
On language
What words, phrases or lines stood out - for whatever reason - when you were reading or listening?
On form
Can you say anything about the shape of the poem, how the words are laid out on the page?
Do you notice any patterns?
What effect does such a shape have on you?
On observation
What is the writer really looking at, either outside or inside himself?
On feeling
What feelings are conveyed during the poem at different points?
Do they change?
Do you share them? 
(p.24).