Unit Outline
In structuring Building Blocks for Poetry: Vertical Team Sequencing for Effective Poetic Analysis, I contend that knowledge required for adept poetic analysis at the twelfth grade level must be acquired over significant and consistent periods of exposure to varied engagements5 with poetic texts at sequential levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation). Hence this curriculum proposes the use of a single work, presented in a progressing structure of poetic analysis from the ninth to the twelfth grades—not as a packaged plan, but as a purposeful process. This process involves six layered readings of a single work of poetry, poet's works or period. Through a concentrated adaptation of skills relating to poetry analysis from ninth to twelfth grades, this curriculum supports a strategic/backward design model,6 and offers a snapshot of how English teachers might smoothly collaborate to align vertically curricular goals using a single work at each grade level, so that students ultimately gain necessary analytical skills for notable advancement. Many poems might be used to illustrate this unit (See Suggested Poetry); however, I will focus examples for the purpose of this curriculum unit on two works, Edgar Allen Poe's "To Helen" (1831) and Hilda Doolittle's (hereafter referred to as H. D.) "Helen" (1924).
In support of this approach, I would point out two factors that are stumbling blocks rather than building blocks. First, in many settings, teachers serve highly transient populations, as is the case with staff as well, which often makes vertical teaming difficult. Second, as teachers, we do not assign students to classes, nor do we have the final say concerning what course we teach from year to year, or in some cases, at what school we teach. Help us all! Yet, if vertical teaming collaboration stabilizes for any given time between the high school and its feeder school(s), I suggest that engagement with the focus texts begin at the middle school level.
Middle Grades
Commonly at each middle school level (and beyond), English teachers prepare units through which the class might become engrossed in the background of specific cultures or periods of history, such as Greek or Roman mythology to include events surrounding The Trojan War. According to Homeric tradition, the War began as a result of a beauty contest among the goddesses, Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. Eris, who was the Goddess of Discord, offered a golden apple for the fairest goddess. Of course, as the Goddess of Discord, she presented this offering knowing that a great conflict would arise among the goddesses as to who was actually the "fairest in revenge for being the only goddess not invited to the wedding of Peleus and the sea nymph Thetis." The competition raged among (Goddess of Love), (Goddess of Wisdom) and (Wife of Zeus). Paris, prince of Troy, whose father was told by an oracle that Paris would one day cause the downfall of Troy, was chosen by the goddesses as judge. Each goddess offered Paris a bribe to make her the winner. Hera offers him sovereignty over the entire Earth, Athena invincibility in battle, and Aphrodite the most beautiful mortal woman. Paris awarded Aphrodite the golden apple. However, his bribe, Helen the most beautiful woman, was married to Menelaus, king of Sparta. Paris, with some favorable help from Aphrodite, abducts Helen and takes her back to Troy. Hence, Menelaus declares war on Troy and allies himself with many countries in the fight to win back his wife, Helen. It is said that a thousand ships rallied at Menelaus' request. A ten-year conflict ensues ending in the destruction of Troy, as foretold.
Students learn through such units about the significance of characters and events associated with epics such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which recount specific events of the War and follow the homeward journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, following the War, respectively. Hence, engagements with the focus works suggested in this unit overview are decidedly fitting. As students learn of the War and Helen's role as the "face that launched a thousand ships" (an epithet from Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus), it is appropriate at this level that students engage "To Helen" through memorization. Memorization remains significant to foundational knowledge, the first cognitive level of Bloom's Taxonomy. More importantly, however, memorization is an aspect of learning that has been allowed to succumb to a fast-paced race with technological advancement. Why commit anything to memory when one click of a computer mouse can produce infinite amounts of knowledge? Billy Collins, in his commencement address, "On Slowing Down," at Choate Rosemary Hall, asserts that the "sudden accessibility of information deadens memory and may even make its functions seem obsolete. But to memorize is to possess something, whether it be a sonnet or a succession of kings, by making it an almost physical part of you, a kind of invisible companion." It is not essential that every nuance of the text is understood at this level, just that the text becomes a "physical part of [students]."
Additionally, having memorized the text to become a part of them (recall my previous concessions), students stand better prepared to discuss the connotative meaning of specific vocabulary within historical context allusions. Familiarity with the following terms/phrases will offer a greater connotative and later figurative understanding of the text: Nicéan barks were vessels sent from the island Nysa, to which in infancy Dionysos was conveyed to screen him from Rhea. The perfumed sea was the sea surrounding Nysa, an island paradise. The way-worn wanderer was Dionysos or Bacchus, after his renowned conquests. His native shore was the Western Horn, called the Amalthean Horn. Naiads in Greek mythology are water nymphs that live in lakes, rivers, springs and fountains. Psyche is a young woman who loved and was loved by Eros (Cupid), god of love, and they married after Aphrodite's jealousy was overcome. She subsequently became the personification of the soul. Articulating these references and their significance to the actual historical events upon which the poem touches will provide a valuable depth of knowledge at this level of engagement.
Though I offer a broad scope of how the vertical team might include grades 6-7, for the purposes of this curricular unit, I will elaborate on four lesson plans offering this same literary work that is effective for vertical teaming. The lessons are designed for use at the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades respectively.
High school
Ninth Grade
Having a more in depth understanding of a text, students at the ninth grade level will write a précis of the previously memorized poem, "To Helen". (If vertical teaming does not include middle school colleagues, memorization can certainly begin at the ninth grade and continue as a practice with other works each year following.) Writing a précis requires more than just summarizing and providing personal opinion. In order to write an accurate précis of a text, students must engage in a critical understanding of meaning, Bloom's second level of cognitive understanding. Hence, they must accurately infer theme to write about the poem with concision.
"To Helen" exalts Helen's beauty. Through his use of celebratory diction and bold imagery, Poe provides a clear tone of veneration thereby, presenting a somewhat pro-Greek view of those who fought willingly for the beautiful Helen to be returned to Sparta.
Advocating the strategic/backward design model, I plan at this juncture with the understanding that students at the twelfth grade level will write a comparative analysis of works with similar theme. But I begin with Poe's "To Helen" for the purpose of the ninth grade lesson.
Tenth Grade
At the tenth grade level, students will analyze how the poet employs imagery to project tone. An analysis of sensory imagery in "To Helen" results in the identification of the following elements:
Allusion: …wanderer bore/To his own native shore (perhaps here suggesting the
resolve of Odysseus finally reaching the shores of Ithaca to see his beloved Penelope and the determination that he maintained to get home to her throughout his difficult journey, Dionysus (Bacchus); Naiad (nymphs gifted in music and dance suggesting a particular gaiety); glory that was Greece,/And the grandeur that was Rome (refers to a return to a time in which Greece and Rome were the dominating cultural centers, fostering beauty and excelling in warfare. Poe wishes to return to the time of the Trojan War to glimpse Helen's beauty); Psyche, from the regions which/Are Holy-Land (Psyche is the personification of the human soul which, presented here, suggests Poe's desire for Helen's beauty and its rarity).
Simile/Metaphor: Comparing Helen's beauty to Nicéan barks of yore, /That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, barks that serve ultimately as a source of hope for the weary, way-worn wanderer.
Sensory imagery:
Smell: perfumed sea (contradictory to the actual smell of the sea), hyacinth
(fragrant flower).
Visual: hyacinth (vibrant red/cinnamon color); Helen presented as a lighthouse…a
source of comfort to a sailor as she stands statue-like holding an agate (ornate
chalcedony or quartz) lamp; classic face (infers that she has a timeless, refined or
highly valued beauty).
It is also fitting at the tenth grade level to introduce ecphrastic poetry—poetry about pictures—that ultimately supports students' application/analysis. Artist Evelyn de Morgan has an excellent view of Helen which will be helpful in the discussion of imagery in "To Helen". The painting is available in color at http://www.stanford.edu /~plomio/helen.html>. Such engagement will not only afford students an opportunity to reference not only the text itself in discussion, but will also bridge the visual and written arts.
Eleventh Grade
In an effort to further develop analytical and now evaluative skills (Sixth level of Bloom's Taxonomy); students will examine rhetorical devices and theme in works with similar subject matter such as "To Helen" and "Helen".
With the introduction of H. D.'s "Helen", students will have the opportunity to examine a text similar in subject to Poe's "To Helen", yet a poem with a very different view of Helen's beauty. H. D. presents Helen with disdain. While Poe praises Helen, H.D. asserts that her luster and smile are hated by All Greece.
H.D. employs the following rhetorical devices:
Repetition: All Greece… (Repeated at the start of stanzas one and two; emphasizes a communal loathing for Helen; it should be noted as well that there is debate about whether or not Helen went with Paris willingly and did not want to return to Menelaus, and that thus The Trojan War persisted for ten years, if this is the case, in vain);
Diction: hates, reviles (curses), wan (lacking in intensity or brightness; note contrast to Poe's classic face description), white (used here to imply bland, stoic and callous); deeper (comparative form suggests intensified hatred for Helen's disingenuous smile)
Allusion: past enchantments/and past ills (refers to the love she professed for Sparta as her queen and for Menelaus as well as the glorification of fighting to reclaim the pride of Sparta and ills, the deaths that ultimately ensued); God's daughter, born of love (Helen is the child of Zeus and Leda, queen of Sparta); funereal cypresses (Visual reference might be made to van Gogh's Starry Night. According to Jacquelyn Etling in Vincent van Gogh, The Weaver of Images: The Starry Night, His Tapestry of Heavenly Consolation, the cypress in the foreground for Van Gogh, had a deeper spiritual meaning. He referred to these trees as "funeral cypresses" in his writings. Around the Mediterranean, cypresses were planted in cemeteries. She further contends that the trees are considered symbols of immortality because of their long life. The blackish green color of these trees also holds a similar meaning of immortality. In the text, the contrasting white ash thus symbolizes the converse image of immortality.6)
Refer to the tenth grade unit overview for a detailed description of literary elements of "To Helen".
I will certainly prepare as well to discuss other elements that students present with the conviction of how the element affirms the obviously spiteful tone of the work.
Twelfth Grade
At the twelfth grade level, having now engaged "To Helen" at all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy as well as critically juxtaposed two works with similar theme, students stand better prepared to complete a comparative analysis of not only the aforementioned texts but also other texts of merit. Students will analyze social and cultural experiences of each text, as well as employ their understanding of the literary elements present and how each expresses the poet's tone.
Thus, engagement at the twelfth grade will conclude a series of vertically aligned lessons, one spanning the ninth through eleventh grades, which concentrate on a specific text, foe example "To Helen".
Students will have forty minutes in which to complete Question 2 from the 1994 Advanced Placement Examination in English Literature and Composition. The examination booklet provides the texts "To Helen" and "Helen" and requires students, while considering various rhetorical devices, to write an essay "contrasting the speakers' views of Helen." (A testing booklet is available for order through The College Board.)
Students will peer-evaluate essays using the Advanced Placement grading rubric for this specific test, also available through The College Board.
Several poems might be used for such correlation. I include a listing of Suggested Poetry for Comparative Analysis below which indicates, parenthetically, poems of similar theme. Additional poems of significant merit are included as a part of the resources for use at grade levels indicated.
Comments: