Poetry Unit
English 8
Ms. Condon
This unit will encompass four weeks of 45 minute class time. Students have been introduced to poetry in seventh grade.
Overview:
Days 1-3: Review terms
Days 4-9: Learn different styles and write to mimic
Days 10-15: Poetry poster
Days 16-20: Poetry Presentation
Day 1: The next few days will focus on reviewing terms and introducing ways to determine meaning in poems. The information is divided up into four sections according to their textbook: Form, Sound, Imagery, and Theme. We focus on Form and Sound first.
I. Materials
A. Copies of Poetry Study Guide for students
II. Procedure
A. Hand out copies of Study Guide
1. Instruct students to write down important information: Definitions, examples, things that are repeated, etc.
2. Inform students that learning form and sound are two ways to figure out the meaning of a poem.
B. Give definitions and examples for Form
1. Form: the way the poem looks
2. Line: one row of words on a page
3. Stanzas: an arrangement of a certain number of lines, forming a division of a poem.
a. Couplet: A stanza of two lines
b. Quatrain: A stanza of four lines
C. Give definitions and examples for Sound
1. Rhyme: Words that end in the same sound
2. Rhyme Scheme: The pattern of rhyming words, marked with letters of the alphabet
3. Internal Rhyme: Multiple words within the line rhyme
4. Repetition: Repeat sounds, words, phrases, or whole lines
a. Emphasizes an ideas or feeling
5. Rhythm: the “beat” of the poem.
Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."
Form: It looks like full lines, sort of like a paragraph, or story.
Lines: four lines, almost the same length
Stanza: quatrain, entire poem is uniform in this.
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB
Internal Rhyme: Dreary and Weary, Napping and Tapping
Repetition: knocking on the door
Rhythm: like a heart beat, stressed, unstressed, etc.
Homework: Find a poem with distinct Sound or Form and bring in with brief explanation, using terms discussed in class.
Day 2: We will focus on Imagery, which entails both sense and figurative language. Figurative language will be broken up between the days. Today, students will learn about the five senses.
I. Materials
- Students Poetry Study Guide
- Overhead of Mary O. Fumento’s poem “The Sorcerer”
II. Procedure
- Imagery: words that help us to imagine something. These words always refer to our senses.
- Have students brainstorm for example words for each sense
- Hearing – electric guitar, whisper
- Sight – purple, dazzling
- Touch – silky, rough
- Smell – roses, bacon frying
- Taste – bitter, salty
- Finding Imagery
- Put the overhead up for the students to view. It is the same poem that is in their study guide. Have the students circle and label the senses as you find them on the overhead
- Hearing – whining, scamper, howl
- Sight – flickering, mellow eyes, darkness, gleam, shimmer, flashes, black and white
- Touch – silky, downy
- Smell
- Taste – sour
- Figurative Language: speech or writing that departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect or meaning
- Overhead of Figurative Language
- Show difference between literal and figurative
- Alliteration: Repetition of letter sounds
- Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds. Causing changes in the mood of the poem
- Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds. Gives a beat.
- Have each student come up with a tongue twister with their name in it using either alliteration, assonance, or consonance
- Example: Ms. Condon carries crochet hooks in case of crooks.
- Personification: Human actions to non-human things
- Example: The flowers dance in the wind
- List human actions on board
- What objects can we match with the list on the board? (i.e. the spring birds chattered)
- Personification: Compare parts of non-human object with parts of human body
- Example: The tree’s hands waved good-bye.
- List body parts on the board
- What parts in nature can be compared with these parts? (i.e. the face of Big Ben watches over the city)
- Hyperbole: exaggeration. Stretching the truth
- Examples: I was tickled to death. Ander made his blood boil.
- Ask students to find the two hyperboles in the poem in their study guide
- Till a’ the seas go dry, my dear
- And the rocks melt wi’ the sun
- Ask students to create other hyperboles
III. Assignment
A. Look up the following types of figurative language and write down their definition and an example.
1. Onomatopoeia
2. Simile
3. Metaphor
4. Irony
Day 3: We will cover Theme today and touch briefly on the figurative language homework. Homework worksheets will assess their knowledge in their research.
I. Materials
A. Students’ Poetry Study Guide
B. Overhead of War Haiku
II. Procedure
A. Symbolism: a word or image that represents something else
1. Examples: eagle = USA, Dove = Peace, Scale = Justice
2. What does white symbolize?
3. What does cupid symbolize?
4. Symbols change! Come up with symbols for these words
- Beauty – Aphrodite
- Wisdom – Owl, apple
- Love – heart, Venus
- Evil – devil, black
- You
B. Read poem from study guide or overhead
C. Answer questions
1. Symbolism
2. What happens in the poem?
- Literally
- Figuratively
3. What message is the poet trying to tell you?
4. What is the purpose of the poem?
- Think of how type of poem comes into play
5. What was happening when the poem was written?
III. Homework
A. Simile and Metaphor Worksheets
Day 4: Today will be the first day learning poetry styles. We will focus on famous and unknown poets whose styles are diverse. Students will practice using the terms reviewed while mimicking different poetic styles. Today’s poet will be Edgar Allen Poe. His style is marked by repetition, internal rhyme, and a simple flowing rhyme scheme. These things combined make the poem sound very musical.
I. Materials
- Annabel Lee tape
- Choral Reading of The Bells
II. Procedure
- Poet’s Information
- Style is marked in repetition, internal rhyme, and a simple, flowing rhyme scheme.
- Focuses on dark themes
- Tape recording of Annabel Lee
- Listen for musical qualities
- Discuss style choices
- The Bells Choral Reading
- Background info
- Hand out parts and coach
- First reading
III. Assignment
A. Practice reading
B. Start writing a piece mimicking his style, to be performed. May work in groups if you want to.
The Bells Choral Reading
All: One!
Middle:Hear the sledges with the bells -
Girls 1:Ting, Ting, ting-a-ling! Ting, ting, ting-a-ling! (repeat)
Boys: Sledge. Sledge. Sledge. Sledge. (repeat)
High: Silver bells!
Low: What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
High: How they
Girl 1: tinkle!
Girl 2: tinkle!
Girl 3: tinkle!
All: In the icy air of night!
Boys 1-3: Icccccccccce.
Low: While the stars that oversprinkle
Middle:All the heavens seem to twinkle
High: With a crystalline delight! Keeping
Boy 1: time! (repeat 5 times)
Boy 2: time! (repeat 4 times)
Boy 3: time! (repeat 3 times)
High: In a sort of Runic rhyme,
Girl 1: To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the
High: bells!
Low: bells!
Middle:bells!
Boy 2: bells!
Girl 2: Bells!
Low: Bells!
High: Bells!
All: From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
All: II
Middle:Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Boys: Dum, Dum, Da-Dum. Dum, Dum, Da-Dum
High: Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Boy 4: Through the balmy air of night
Girl 4: How they ring out their delight!
Boy 5: From the molten-golden notes,
All: And all in tune,
High: Do, Do, Do-Do, Do Do Do-Do
Low: What a liquid ditty floats
Girl 5: To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
Boys: Ca-coo! Ca-coo!
High: On the moon!
Girl 4: Oh, from out the sounding cells
Boy 4: What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
High: How it swells!
Low: How it dwells
All: On the Future!
Middle:How it tells
Boy 5: Of the rapture that impels
Girl 5: To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells,
Boy 5: Bells,
Girl 5: Bells,
High: Of the bells!
Low: bells!
Middle:bells!
Boy 4: bells!
Girl 4: Bells!
Low: Bells!
High: Bells!
All: To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
All: III
High: Hear the loud alarum bells -
Boys: (police siren)
Girls: Brazen bells! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
Middle:In the startled ear of night
High: How they scream out their affright!
Low: Too much horrified to speak,
Boy 6: They can only shriek,
Girl 6: shriek,
Boy 7: Out of tune,
Girl 7: In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
Boy 6:In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Low: Leaping higher,
Middle:Higher!
High: Higher!
Girl 6: With a desperate desire,
Boy 7: And a resolute endeavor
All: Now -now to sit or never,
Girl 7: By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Low: Oh, the bells,
Middle:Bells!
High: Bells!
Boys: What a tale their terror tells
Girls: Of despair!
Girl 6: How they clang, and clash, and roar!
Boy 6: What a horror they outpour
Girl 7: On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Low: Yet the ear it fully knows,
Boys: How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, How the
danger sinks and swells,
Girls: By the twanging, And the clanging, In the jangling, And the wrangling,
Low: By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Middle:Of the bells,
High: Of the bells!
Low: bells!
Middle:bells!
Boy 7: bells!
Girl 7: Bells!
Low: Bells!
High: Bells!
All: In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
All: IV
Low: Hear the tolling of the bells - Iron bells!
Boys: Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! (repeat until girls are done)
Girls: What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright at the melancholy menace of their tone!
Boy 8: For every sound that floats
Girl 8: From the rust within their throats
All: Is a groan.
Boy 9: And the people
Girl 9: ah, the people!
High: They that dwell up in the steeple,
Low: All alone,
Boys: And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
Girls: In that muffled monotone,
Boy 8: Feel a glory in so rolling on the human heart a stone -
Low: They are neither man nor woman –
Middle:They are neither brute nor human –
High: They are Ghouls:
Girl 8: And their king it is who tolls;
Low: And he rolls,
Middle:Rolls!
High: Rolls!
Boy 9: A paean from the bells!
Girl 9: And his merry bosom swells
Boy 9: With the paean of the bells!
Girls: And he dances!
Boys: and he yells!
Low: Keeping time,
Middle:Time!
High: Time!
Girl 9: In a sort of Runic rhyme,
Boy 9: To the paean of the bells,
All: Of the bells -
Low: Keeping time,
Middle:Time!
High: Time!
Girl 9: In a sort of Runic rhyme,
All: To the throbbing of the bells,
Low: Of the bells,
Middle:Bells!
High: Bells!
All:To the sobbing of the bells;
Boy 1: Keeping time
Girl 1: Time!
Boy 2: Time!
Girl 2: As he knells,
Boy 3: Knells!
Girl 3: Knells!
Boy 4: In a happy Runic rhyme,
All: To the rolling of the bells,
Girl 4: Of the bells,
Boy 5: Bells!
Girl 5: Bells!
Boy 6: To the tolling of the bells,
Girl 6: Of the bells,
Boy 7: Bells!
Girl 7: Bells!
Boy 8: Bells!
Girl 8: Bells!
Boy 9: Bells!
Girl 9: Bells!
All: To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Day 5: We will continue with Edgar Allen Poe. As a class, we will perform The Bells, giving them an opportunity to perform poetry before their final project. The rest of class will be spent working on their mimic piece, which will be performed next class.
I. Materials
- The Bells scripts
- “Nevermore”
II. Procedure
- Have students perform The Bells with your guidance.
- Have students continue to work on their pieces for tomorrow. Encourage gestures and vocal distinctions.
- Read or have a tape playing Nevermore in the background as another example of Poe style for inspiration.
III. Assignments
- Finish writing performance piece
- Must mimic Poe: repetition, internal rhyme, simple rhyme scheme
- Theme must be dark
- 1-2 minutes per student
- Focus on vocal distinctions
- Due the day after Maya Angelou
Day 6: Today we will learn about e.e. cummings. Slam Poets, which we will learn about tomorrow, and e. e. cummings have one major thing in common: they play with the line length and placement. This greatly effects how the poem is read.
I. Materials
- e. e. cumming poems overheads
II. Procedure
- Put e. e. cummings’ poem on the overhead
- Discuss characteristics of e. e. cummings’ poems
- Rebel against the rules
- No capitalization, ran words together
- Visual arrangement
- Share e. e. cummings’ Buffalo Bill
- Childlike wonder
- Natural awareness
- In the moment and appreciating small things
- Share e. e. cummings i carry your heart with me
- Brevity
- Short lines
- Short poem over-all
- Share guilt is a cause of more disorders
- Share more examples and discuss how the choices made change how the poem is read
- i have found what you are like
- l(a
- Spend remaining time on working on the homework
III. Assignment
A. Write a poem that mimics e. e. cummings style. Explain why at the bottom of the page.
B. Due in three days at the end of Maya Angelou.
Day 7: After learning about e. e. cummings’ style, we will explore today’s slam poets. They are similar in many ways. You could say that cummings rebellion of the rules sparked their movement. Much of their poetry is published in the same style as cummings, with artistic liberties in the placement, capitalization, and syntax of the phrases.