Mrs. Staab
English 135 Periods 2 & 3
Lesson Plans
Week of 12/05/2011 - 12/09/2011
Understanding
Poetry enables the reader to appreciate the sound and imagery of language.
Poetry can take many forms and can be interpreted in many ways.
Unit Essential Question: How do poets express self, identity and other themes in their
work? How can I express myself through poetry…do I dare??
Standards:
CRS – English
20-23 WCH
302 B
discuss and model tone and style
13-15 TOB
201 A read writers of various genres and imitate their work
CRS – Reading
20-23 MOW
301
use context to understand basic figurative language
20-23 MID
301 A analyze techniques used by the author of a text to reveal or conceal his or her
point of view
Objectives:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
I will write many simply organized short texts of various genres
I will participate actively in class discussions
I will write poetry in a variety of forms utilizing the techniques of poets
I will identify the basic elements of poetry
I will analyze a poem for literary devices including instances of figurative language
Activities:
Monday, December 5, 2011
1) Bellringer- View & reflect " Brant Bauer Frick…what is the theme? " Students write
for seven minutes and share with their clock buddies (9 o'clock buddies)
2) Review video clip from Of Mice and Men court proceedings and as a class discuss the
learning outcome
3) Introduction to poetry unit- anticipation guide; students complete anticipation guide
and briefly share their answers with the class
4) Poetry splash- small groups receive several short poems and read independently while
annotating using symbols; * This word or line is cool,
! This is something important
? I don’t get it: I don’t understand this line or phrase
5) Students share their thinking about their personal interpretation and responses to the
poems within their groups
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
1) Bellringer- 'Picture prompt…Help' Students write for seven minutes and share
with their clock buddies (11 o'clock buddies)
2) Continue poetry splash from yesterday-Small groups select one poem from yesterday's
poetry handout that they all feel strongly about. As a group they will complete the
What I Read - What I Think – What I Wonder graphic organizer about the poem.
3) Share/discuss comparisons as a class
4) Exit Slip: Each student writes a definition of poetry.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
1) Bellringer- "first 3 lines…poetry " Students write for seven minutes and share with
their clock buddies (12 o'clock buddies)
2) Introduce elements of poetry ppt- students take notes
3) Read aloud "Hanging Fire" by Audrey Lorde while students annotate. As a class discuss
style/form of poetry.
4) Individual students reread poem annotating using specific guidelines and then share
their responses within their groups.
5) Students write a poem in free verse that begins with the same lines of the poem “I am
fourteen" but use their actual age.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
1) Bellringer- "make of a list of…" Students write for seven minutes and share with
their clock buddies (2 o'clock buddies)
2) Poetic devices- small groups practice finding poetic devices in song lyrics
3) Exit slip- metaphor/simile
Friday, December 9, 2011
1) Bellringer- "paralyze" Students write for seven minutes and share with their clock
buddies (4 o'clock buddies)
2) Whole class share/review yesterday's lesson on poetic devices
3) Individual students write a poem with at least five poetic devices
4) Volunteers share poems with whole class
5) Exit slip- reflection/evaluation
6) Homework- Two school appropriate song lyrics with poetic device analysis
Resources and Materials:
Computer
LCD Projector
Handouts
Assessment:
Student participation
Student self evaluation
Exit slips
Homework:
Two song lyrics with poetic device analysis ( due Monday Dec. 12)
Name________________________
Date_____________________
Period________________
Poetry Anticipation Guide
Directions: Place the letter A or D to indicate whether you Agree or Disagree with
the statements below.
________1. The true meaning of a poem can only be understood by the person who wrote it.
________2. Poems look different from other types of writing.
________3. Poems are always about emotions.
________4. Poems always rhyme.
________5. Poems are boring.
________6. A poem cannot be fun or funny.
________7. No poem can ever be completely understood.
________8. The sound of words is important in poetry.
________9. Every poem uses symbols.
________10. Line breaks and stanzas tell you how to read a poem.
________11. Each poem has its own rhythm.
________12. A good poem makes you feel something.
________13. Poems are quick and easy to write.
________14. Poems are hard to understand/figure out.
________15. Poems should use standard English/conventions of grammar.
Name______________________________
Date_________________________
Period______________________
Poetry Handout
Eating Poetry
Introduction to Poetry
Mark Strand
Billy Collins
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
I am a new man,
I snarl at her and bark,
I romp with joy in the bookish dark
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Exit
Lines
Martha Collins
Rita Dove
Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.
The door opens to a street like in the movies,
clean of people, of cats; except it is your street
you are leaving. A visa has been granted,
"provisionally"-a fretful word.
The windows you have closed behind
you are turning pink, doing what they do
every dawn. Here it's gray. The door
to the taxicab waits. This suitcase,
the saddest object in the world.
Well, the world's open. And now through
the windshield the sky begins to blush
as you did when your mother told you
what it took to be a woman in this life
Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don't
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over
or out, between two points of no
return's a line of flight, between
two points of view's a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line's no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.
The Crystal Gazer
Alone
Sarah Teasdale
Maya Angelou
I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one.
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun
I Shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent.
Watching the future come and the present go And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In tiny self-importance to and fro.
Did I Miss Anything?
Tom Wayman
Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours
Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 percent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 percent
Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose
Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light suddenly descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring the good news to all people
on earth.
Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?
Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human experience
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered
but it was one place
And you weren’t here
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
The Bat
Theodore Roethke
By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.
His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.
He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.
But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:
For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face.
Name_______________________________
Date______________________________
Period____________________________
What I Read, What I Think, What I Wonder
What I Read
What I Think
What I Wonder
Name_______________________
Date______________________
Period________________
Hanging Fire
Audre Lorde
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his thumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before the morning comes
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I de before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth about me
There is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
Nobody even stops to think
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team
my marks were better than his
why do I have to be
the one
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
Name________________________
Date_______________________
Period____________________
Poetic Devices
Directions: As you listen to the song find examples of the following poetic techniques
Alliteration
repetition of an initial sound in two or more
words of a phrase (e.g., Billy builds big houses
with beige bricks.)
Example from the song
Assonance
partial rhyme created by a shared vowel sound
(e.g., The napping cat had many bad habits.)
Example from the song
Metaphor
a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken
of as if it were another (e.g., Your sister is a
pig! That’s her fourth hamburger!)
Example from the song
Rhyme
correspondence in the sounds of two or more
lines (especially final sounds) (e.g., Sitting by
the sea I thought about you and me.)
Example from the song
Simile
comparison of one thing with another, using as
or like (e.g., She’ll probably win tomorrow’s
race. She runs like a gazelle.)
Example from the song
Onomatopoeia
use of words whose sound suggests the sense
(e.g., buzz or hiss)
Example from the song
Personification
Giving humanistic thoughts and feeling to
inanimate objects.
Example from the song
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds of neighboring
words (e.g. talking and walking hours on end)
Example from the song
Hyperbole
A deliberate exaggeration ( e.g. He could eat a
horse)
Example from the song
Irony
Saying the opposite of what is actually meant
(e.g. The directions were clear as mud)
Example from the song
Name __________________________
Date _________________________
Period __________________
Poetry Exit Ticket
FRIENDS
A friend is like a mystery
still to be discovered
wanting to be figured out
A friend is a book
always very clever
waiting to be read
and understood
How do poets say things in special ways in their poetry?
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Identify and copy the metaphor from the poem above.
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Why does the author use this metaphor?
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Identify and copy the simile from the poem above.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Why does the author use this simile?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Name______________________
Date____________________
Period________________
Poetic Devices
Write a poem that uses at least 5 poetic devices that we’ve discussed in this unit. The
poem must be at least 8 lines long for full credit. Circle which poetic devices you used in
your poem.
End rhyme
Internal rhyme
Repetition
Imagery
Simile
Metaphor
Hyperbole
Personification
Alliteration
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