UTL 640E, Haug
CT: Michelle Iskra / Cedar Park High School
Submitted Nov. 4, Teach Date Nov. 6
Matthew Kessler
AP English IV
Teach # 5
Lesson Plan 3: AP Poetry Analysis
Lesson Objectives
● After reading and analyzing Keats’s “When I Have Fears” as a class, students will individually
write an AP practice essay based on the 2011 prompt in order to gain proficiency in poetic
analysis and familiarity with the AP exam format.
Enduring Understandings/Essential Questions
● Poetry is open to interpretation, but not without textual evidence.
● How do meter and rhyme change how you read a poem?
● Why might a poet choose to incorporate certain literary devices?
Resources/Materials
● Before lesson:
○ Print 40 copies of “When I Have Fears” and 40 copies of the AP prompt
● During lesson:
○ Distribute “When I Have Fears”
○ After activity, distribute AP prompt
English IV TEKS
● (3) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Poetry. Students understand, make inferences
and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of poetry and provide evidence from
text to support their understanding. Students are expected to evaluate the changes in sound,
form, figurative language, graphics, and dramatic structure in poetry across literary time periods.
● (7) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Sensory Language. Students understand, make
inferences and draw conclusions about how an author's sensory language creates imagery in
literary text and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are
expected to analyze how the author's patterns of imagery, literary allusions, and conceits reveal
theme, set tone, and create meaning in metaphors, passages, and literary works.
● (13) Writing/Writing Process. Students use elements of the writing process (planning, drafting,
revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students are expected to:
○ (A) plan a first draft by selecting the correct genre for conveying the intended meaning
to multiple audiences, determining appropriate topics through a range of strategies (e.g.,
discussion, background reading, personal interests, interviews), and developing a thesis
or controlling idea;
○ (B) structure ideas in a sustained and persuasive way (e.g., using outlines, note taking,
graphic organizers, lists) and develop drafts in timed and open-ended situations that
include transitions and the rhetorical devices to convey meaning;
○ (C) revise drafts to clarify meaning and achieve specific rhetorical purposes,
consistency of tone, and logical organization by rearranging the words, sentences, and
paragraphs to employ tropes (e.g., metaphors, similes, analogies, hyperbole,
understatement, rhetorical questions, irony), schemes (e.g., parallelism, antithesis,
inverted word order, repetition, reversed structures), and by adding transitional words
and phrases;
○ (D) edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling; and
○ (E) revise final draft in response to feedback from peers and teacher and publish
written work for appropriate audiences.
● (17) Oral and Written Conventions/Conventions. Students understand the function of and use
the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing. Students will continue to
apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
○ (A) use and understand the function of different types of clauses and phrases (e.g.,
adjectival, noun, adverbial clauses and phrases); and
○ (B) use a variety of correctly structured sentences (e.g., compound, complex,
compound-complex).
● (24) Listening and Speaking/Listening. Students will use comprehension skills to listen
attentively to others in formal and informal settings. Students will continue to apply earlier
standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
○ (A) listen responsively to a speaker by framing inquiries that reflect an understanding of
the content and by identifying the positions taken and the evidence in support of those
positions; and
○ (B) assess the persuasiveness of a presentation based on content, diction, rhetorical
strategies, and delivery.
● (25) Listening and Speaking/Speaking. Students speak clearly and to the point, using the
conventions of language. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater
complexity. Students are expected to formulate sound arguments by using elements of classical
speeches (e.g., introduction, first and second transitions, body, and conclusion), the art of
persuasion, rhetorical devices, eye contact, speaking rate (e.g., pauses for effect), volume,
enunciation, purposeful gestures, and conventions of language to communicate ideas effectively.
Steps in Lesson
● Engagement: 5 mins
○ Ask around for any favorite forms of poetry: sonnet, limerick, ballad, etc. and why they
like those forms
● Stated Objective:
○ “You’ve been doing lots of comparative literature analysis, but English class and the AP
test expect more from you. We’re switching gears into poetry. What you’ve read in
Perrine so far should help you out. Keep in mind the chapter headings when looking at
these poems: things like theme, meter, and tone, and remember that the ultimate goal of
reading poetry is to find the meaning hidden inside the words.”
● Active Learning: 80 mins
○ 40 mins: read and discuss “When I Have Fears” as a class, noting important aspects
like form and word choice
○ 40 mins: have students write yet another practice AP essay, this time over the poem
given -- make sure they follow the prompt and discuss specific literary techniques
● Closure: 5 mins
○ Ask how they felt about the AP poem -- if they’ve ever seen a poem with the same
“echo” format, what they thought about it
Modifications/Differentiation Strategies
● Follow IEPs
Evaluation Strategies
● When analyzing the Keats poem, monitor close reading skills and interpretive accuracy
● Collect essays at the end of the period for review
When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be
John Keats (1795-1821)
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
Written 1818, published 1848.
2011 AP® ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
SECTION II
Total time—2 hours
Question 1
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)
Read carefully the following poem by Robert Pack, paying close attention to the relationship between form and
meaning. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how the literary techniques used in this poem contribute to its
meaning.
AN ECHO SONNET
To an Empty Page
Line
5
10
Voice:
Echo:
How from emptiness can I make a start?
And starting, must I master joy or grief?
But is there consolation in the heart?
Oh cold reprieve, where’s natural relief?
Leaf blooms, burns red before delighted eyes.
Here beauty makes of dying, ecstasy.
Yet what’s the end of our life’s long disease?
If death is not, who is my enemy?
Then are you glad that I must end in sleep?
I’d leap into the dark if dark were true.
And in that night would you rejoice or weep?
What contradiction makes you take this view?
I feel your calling leads me where I go.
But whether happiness is there, you know.
Start
Grief
Art
Leaf
Dies
See
Ease
Me
Leap
True
Weep
You
Go
No
Reprinted by permission of Robert Pack.
© 2011 The College Board.
Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.
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