Poetry as a Way of Teaching Fundamental Values : the Relation Between Textbooks and Curriculum

Abstract: Research has shown that poetry is a good tool to talk about and teach values. Skolverket has during the past 20 years stressed the importance of fundamental values through their documents and guidelines. In the Lgy 11 curriculum for English for Swedish upper secondary school, poetry is for the first time listed as a core content. Therefore this essay asks the critical question: Does teaching of poetry in English 6 textbooks live up to the fundamental values specified by Skolverket? In this essay two textbooks in English 6 have been studied along with literature on the topic. The essay uses a modified model presented by Gunnel Colnerud that differentiates the term fundamental values to be able answer the research question. The result shows that the two textbooks include poetry that talks about the fundamental values according to all the categories suggested in the model. The most frequent value in this study concerns students’ own opinions and their existential and religious questions.