Classroom Activities
The following activities are enumerated in the order of which I think they should be presented to the students. The lessons are in scaffold from the familiar and quickly accessible, to the unfamiliar and challenging. With the exception of the first three, the activities will take roughly three sessions each, as session one will be the introduction to a new poem and concept, session two will be a check for analytical understanding with a similar poem, and week three will be a write-like workshop to allow the students to synthesize their knowledge of the poet's work and evaluate their own pieces.
Class Routine - See Strategies
Lesson 1: Introducing Meter-"Jumping Nursery Rhymes and Limericks"
The students will jump rope to nursery rhymes as an introduction to the temporal spacing that occurs when meter and rhythm are used. The students will then apply this concept of rhythm to limerick writing in order to begin learn about the manner in which rhyme and meter effect the way a poem is read.
Lesson 2: Introducing Alliteration - "Post Up!"
The students will be asked to create an alliterated team poem by choosing letters that help to support given thematic prompts, such as "Use the ocean as a metaphor for perseverance." All teams will post their poems and each will be read aloud. Students will vote on the most effective use of alliteration and state why he or she thinks so.
Lesson 3: Introducing Line Break- "Break it up, Break it down!"
After responding to William Carlos Williams' poem "To a Poor Old Woman", the students will be asked to create a poem about an everyday event using enjambment techniques.
Lesson 4: Introducing Symbolism through Sound - "Auditory Imagery"
After responding to Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" students will be asked to create a poem that creates auditory imagery.
Lesson 5: Introducing Scansion- "Hello, Ms. Charmello. How are you?"
Using a concept attainment method, the title line will be placed on the board and I will ask a few students to read it aloud as I mark the stress symbols. I will then call on a few students, replacing my name with theirs, and each student will be asked to read it aloud. As they speak, I will again mark the stress marks as they read.
Lesson 6: An Introduction to Free Verse - "Are We Ever Really Free?"
After responding to Jimmy Santiago Baca's poem "Set This Book On Fire", the students will be asked to create a poem about their life's message. Like Baca, they will use alliteration to create emphasis on important statements.
Lesson 7: Introducing Dialect to Establish Voice - "Wazz'up? Flattery and Familiarity"
Students will listen to Langston Hughes "Mother to Son" and will write or draw whatever images are conjured up by this poem. A discussion will ensue regarding the deeper message about children and their caregivers. Students will be asked to generate a list of pop culture slang and use the terms in a flattering poem about the familiarity of an enduring friendship.
Lesson 8: Introducing the Blues
After responding to Eloise Greenfield's "Way Down in the Music", the students will be asked to create a poem using a self-created rhythmic pattern without the use of rhyme.
Lesson 9: An Introduction to Dramatic Monologue - "Spell Bound by the Sound"
After responding to Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy", the students will be asked to create a poem about being bound by stereotypes. They will be asked to employ at least two of each technique covered in the lessons above and will be asked to explain what they chose, why they chose the them, and how they effect the poem.
Additional "On Your Own" Activities
Poem Selection: "Block City" by Robert Louis Stevenson
Guiding Question: How can your imagination help you to persevere?
The students will be asked to visualize a day in their neighborhood. The teacher should ask for images based on each of the senses. The students will then create two poems that will reflect one another. The first will be a simple concrete poem that describes a present-day favorite object within their neighborhood, such as a tree, backyard, park swing, etc. The second will be a calligramme in a student-chosen shape that represents how their childhood feelings of life have either changed or come to fruition. This image will be filled with words rather than just having the words outlining it, as in the concrete poem. In addition, the words can be reflective of the image, but not entirely describing fruit.
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