ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how English teachers in two culturally diverse cities in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and England are able to respond to contextual factors in their poetry teaching during a time of curriculum change. Focusing specifically on the teaching and assessment of poetry at 16+, it considers the opportunities that teachers and students have to engage with poetry at examination level and the constraints they experience. Recent changes to National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) courses in English have shifted the assessment emphasis further away from poetry than previously and significantly constrained the defined space for poetry in some high stakes examinations. In investigating the impact of assessment changes, the research aims to inform international debates about poetry's position in culturally diverse classroom contexts and the implications of this positioning for teachers' professional knowledge and poetry pedagogy.
