Irony and Wilhelm Ch 2

After reading the second chapter of Wilhelm what stood out to me was the passage in which he tries to teach his students about Ozymandias. He reads the poem and the students are really excited, they read along and shout how great he is, then when he gets to the part where the speaker points out how useless the king is the students don't pick up on it. They're stuck on the initial thought that the King is this great legend. I had that same experience when teaching "the road not taken" by frost in my sed 406 class. Everyone thinks that poem is about how great it is to be an individual but really the poem is making fun of that thought. It's a poem about over indulged nostalgia. When I tried to get my 'students' to see that it was impossible. They were stuck on the idea of individualism that they were taught. For awhile I thought it best to just point out the parts that indicated the irony in the poem but what good would that do? They wouldn't know how to use irony or spot in on their own. After reading this passage I have to say I like his method. Irony is difficult and it makes sense to cultivate it through out a strongly supported unit before expecting students to just understand it.