| Abstract: | Can two apparently totally different secondary school subjects join forces in an attempt to enrich the learning processes of both? The authors address this question by describing an experimental lesson in which student‐teachers verbalize their preconceptions concerning a natural object (mushrooms) while in the same lesson they do a personal response activity for a poem by Sylvia Plath entitled ‘Mushrooms’. The results indicate that student teachers of different disciplines find this to be a meaningful teaching approach. It proved to be a motivating way to evoke preconceptions about a natural phenomenon by means of a poem and resulted in an enhanced awareness of mushrooms, which culminated in questions on both their growth and reproduction. Moreover, their ‘literary’ interest in the poem and the writer appeared to be stimulated. Possible applications in teaching and teacher training are discussed. |
