Lesson Plan II
Stress in "Mending Wall" poem by Robert Frost
Classroom Activity III
We Spoke Verse!
The purpose of "We Spoke Verse" is to inform the students that at certain time we used to speak in verse form, as now we speak in prose. This will be good time to introduce the concept of prose. The students will learn that prose is the name of our speaking style and there is a simple anecdotal about it.
I will relay the following anecdote to my students. "There was a student who asked her teacher ‘What is Prose?' And the teacher answered: ‘You speak prose!." Following this comment, I will give them some examples of prose that are used every day: journalism, expository, narratives, stories, fiction, tales, biographies, etc. adding that genres are the classification of these written practices. Once the students have understood prose, I will tell them about language use during the Mexican Colonial period in which the members of the royal court spoke in verse. To this effect, I will show the students a piece from a video where Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz a Mexican poet, is talking in verse with her visitors. The students will realize that as fashion in clothes change, so does the way we talk and will continue changing through our days.
This is a micro lesson in a macro scenario. Human king possesses the ability to capture the simple details. If you sing you sing verse, if you speak you emit sentences. Language has an age and the students will learn that the non common, unusual words are named archaisms, and its inverse is neologism. As teachers we can use this exorcise to familiarize with their favorite words that we ignore, that we never thought that would be use in that context, sense or direction.
I will give the students some minutes to plan a short dialog in verse which they will then come to the front of the class in pairs to carry out their dialogs. This activity is usually very amusing and fruitful, so I will give them credit for participating.
This activity takes 25 minutes.
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