American Literature: Poetry Unit
Essential Questions:
- How do sound and form impact a poem’s meaning?
- What strategies can readers use to increase comprehension and appreciation of poetry?
- How can writing and discussing our own poems enhance our experience of reading and studying poetry in general?
- Make inferences and determine the central meaning of a poem through close analysis.
- Develop inferential questions in response to a poem.
- Identify patterns in terms of sound, form, and ideas/content within a poem and analyze how the writer’s choices contribute to the poem’s overall meaning.
- Define and identify elements of poetry as well as inquiry and reading strategies.
- Respond to the text and explore the elements of poetry more in depth through creative writing.
Common Core State Standards
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9–10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.4a Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
- • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.4b Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., analyze, analysis, analytical; advocate, advocacy).
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.4c Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, or its etymology.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.4d Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).
Core Poetry Concepts:
- Form/Structure + Content = Overall Meaning of the Poem & The Effect of the Poem on Reader.
- EVERY Choice A Writer Makes is INTENTIONAL and meant to add to the overall meaning of the poem.
- Credit: Molly Vasich https://sites.google.com/site/vasichcourses/
Assignments and Information
Poets/Poems Included in this Unit: Sylvia Plath Robert Frost T.S. Eliot Williams Carlos Williams
American Poetry Unit Overview Poetry Unit Assignments Poetry Portfolio Culminating Assessment Billy Collins Video Transcendentalism Information Langston Hughes Poetry Practice |
4 Major Elements of Poetry:
Figurative Language: occurs whenever a poet uses words in ways that stray from their usual meaning. Poets often use figurative language to "help readers move from their familiar prior knowledge to understanding new, unfamiliar text...Metaphors or similes often consist of familiar physical, concrete entitiesthat are used to portray conceptual meanings" (from "Teaching Literature to Adolescents"). Imagery: Poetry is dense with images, things we can sense: hear, smell, see, taste, feel. Poets create what T.S. Eliot calls an "objective correlative," an objective, physical world that correlates (links) us to a feeling. Good poets don't just tell us how they feel; they put us in a world of images that allow us to feel what they feel. Voice/Attitude/Tone: When you read a poem it is essential that you see two fundamental parts of the poem: the speaker (who is talking?) and the subject (What is the poem about?). The attitude a speaker takes toward the subject creates her tone or voice. You should ask: Who is speaking? What is the subject? What is the speaker's attitude toward the subject? Patterns: Poetry depends on patterns much more than novels or other prose writing do. Not that we don't find patterns in novels, but in poetry there is a much higher concentration. By patters, I mean repetitions of sound. There are numerous types of patterns, the two with which we're most familiar being rhythm and rhyme. However, there are many sound techniques. Poetry also uses a device called parallelism. This is the repetition of a word, group of words, or even a part of speech. Reading Strategies 1. Multiple Readings: Poetry can be tough to understand! The first time we read a poem, we often read to understand the plot or the events occurring on the surface of the text. The second time we read, we often identify a connection between two ideas or spot a phrase we might view as significant. Multiple readings is especially important in poetry because often the literal is less important than what the writer is implying or trying to express through words and images. 2. Threading: Noting words, phrases, or passages that stand out to you is how you make sense of the poem’s meaning. You can do this during your first, second, third reading of the poem. Don't dismiss your own skill as a reader. There is a reason why something stands out to you! It's intentional! Start to inquire: What about this stands out to me? 3. Talking Back To The Text: This strategy is essentially the act of forming interpretative or inferential questions in response to the content and ideas within a poem. You must ask, “Why?” Poetry Slam "Rigged Game" by Dylan Garity
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Ralph Waldo Emerson from The Literature Network
Initially published anonymously, Emerson's first collection of essays, Nature, is the culmination of much soul-searching and scholarly study by Emerson in the fields of philosophy and religion. Never intending to be regarded as a philosopher, Emerson emerged as one of the original thinkers of his age, oftentimes poetically expressing his ideals. "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.-- ' .... of Nature itself upon the soul; the sunrise, the haze of autumn, the winter starlight seem interlocutors; the prevailing sense is that of an exposition in poetry; a high discourse, the voice of the speaker seems to breathe as much from the landscape as from his own breast; it is Nature communing with the seer." James Taylor's "Fire and Rain"
"Fire And Rain" Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone. Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you. I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song, I just can't remember who to send it to. I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd see you again. Won't you look down upon me, Jesus, You've got to help me make a stand. You've just got to see me through another day. My body's aching and my time is at hand and I won't make it any other way. Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd see you again. Been walking my mind to an easy time, my back turned towards the sun. Lord knows when the cold wind blows it'll turn your head around. Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come. Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground. Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I'd see you baby, one more time again, now. Thought I'd see you one more time again. There's just a few things coming my way this time around, now. Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you, fire and rain, now. |
From Henry David Thoreau's "Solitude" from Thoreau eserver.com
THIS IS A delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature's watchmen — links which connect the days of animated life. [17] The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature — of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter — such health, such cheer, they afford forever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature would be affected, and the sun's brightness fade, and the winds would sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their leaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself? Metallica's
"Sandman" "Enter Sandman" Say your prayers, little one Don't forget, my son To include everyone Tuck you in, warm within Keep you free from sin Till the Sandman he comes Sleep with one eye open Gripping your pillow tight Exit: light Enter: night Take my hand We're off to never never land Something's wrong, shut the light Heavy thoughts tonight And they aren't of Snow White Dreams of war, dreams of liars Dreams of dragon's fire And of things that will bite Sleep with one eye open Gripping your pillow tight Exit: light Enter: night Take my hand We're off to never never land Now I lay me down to sleep Pray the Lord my soul to keep If I die before I wake Pray the Lord my soul to take Hush little baby, don't say a word And never mind that noise you heard It's just the beasts under your bed In your closet, in your head Exit: light Enter: night Grain of sand Exit: light Enter: night Take my hand We're off to never never land |