Introduction and Rationale
My students come from many countries. Some arrive a few days before they join my class. Some have been in America for several years. But all share the common experience of leaving one homeland and learning to adapt to and adopt another. Having grown up in Texas, then lived much of my adult life in Canada, I share their heightened interest in the concept of home. The poems we study in this unit explore three aspects of home: leaving the familiar, remembering, and being the one left behind.
In terms of poetic craft, this unit focuses on concreteness and metaphor. Poetic devices such as assonance, consonance, anaphora, end stopping, enjambment, meter and rhythm, and various forms are also introduced through the poems. Many poems center on objects, often described in concrete detail. I want students to see that poetry is grounded in the real; I also want them to make the leap to metaphor that strong poems engender. Twin culminations of each section are an essay and a poem the student writes which illustrate her understanding both of the prominence of image, and of the depths to be gained through metaphor. Linking theme and craft through an experience that is central to their lives engages students' interest and encourages them to grow both intellectually and emotionally.
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