Pedagogical stylistics: a text world theory approach to the teaching of poetry

This article explores how the stylistic framework of Text World Theory (Werth 1999, Gavins 2007) can be used in the classroom to generate critical insights and analyses of the ways in which texts operate. This approach falls within the scope of the discipline of pedagogical stylistics and as such it will examine and consider its usefulness as a teaching model to encourage both student awareness of language and wider consideration and understanding of the interaction between readers and texts, including intertextuality and the positioning of the text in its socio-historical context.