Classroom Activities
Lesson Plan One: Genre and Era Review
Objectives
Before covering all the sonnets in the unit, I will take them through the entire syllabus of literature we have covered throughout the course—together with the genre each occupies, the value we derived from each one, and the unique utility of those other genres, so that we have a comparative basis for working with verse forms. Students will also organize and rank their favorite works
Materials
Students will need their course notebooks, a list of the major works that we have covered, and a listing of genres and their conventions.
Initiation
I will ask students to start by examining the list of works that we have covered in our English 3 survey of American literature and to identify their three favorite works of literature—regardless of era or genre. For each of the three works, they will establish what historical era those works belonged to, what genre they belong to, and one key detail about the author who produced the work. They will enter this information into a graphic organizer.
Procedure
For each of the three favorite works of literature the students select from their list, they will have to identify two works of literature that belong to the same genre but which belong to a different era of American literature. Their choice will be contingent on whether they choose (as their favorite) an early, middle, or modern work of literature. If modern, they will have to choose two preceding works, whereas if early American literature, two succeeding works—so they can view a chronology of three works within a particular genre. If the students choose more than one favorite work from a single genre, I will allow overlapping items—so long as they have three separate graphic organizers.
Closure
I will ask the students, upon completing their graphic organizers, whether they can identify the principal reason they chose a "favorite" of literature was primarily genre, time period, or particularity of the author. I would intend for this same type of critical distinction to carry over to their coverage and analysis of the American sonnet.
Lesson 2: Historical background and inference guide
Objectives
Have the students anticipate what types of subjects a poet will choose and what type of diction and tone they will adopt based on their historical and cultural context.
Materials
Students will use their notebooks, computer lab resources, and relevant music selections and art selections obtained through the Smithsonian Museum website and the National Archives.
Initiation
I will have the students work with beginning biographical background at discrete intervals. Accompanying this will be artwork and/or music contemporaneous with each set of poems so that students can be exposed to the artistic context into which the sonnets they will be covering fall. They will receive graphic organizers to channel their impressions about both the visual and the audio. Following these exercises, they will anticipate the subject(s) and the tone of the poems they will be reading based on their exposure to each poem's context
Procedure
Much as several of the sonnets perform ecphrasis in writing their sonnets, students will perform reverse-ecphrasis: they will start with a historically contemporary piece of visual art and then attempt to match one of several sonnets to that visual. In this case, I call it reverse-ecphrasis because the visual will have no known nor established connection to the poem assigned; it will simply require the inferential skill and effort of students to make connections between the visual and the verse.
In addition, I will provide songs or music of the era contemporary with the sonnets I provide and ask the students to make connections based on some shared sense of diction and cultural reference. James Baldwin once wrote that literature, "It is devoutly to be hoped, will rob us of our myths and give us our history, which will destroy our attitudes and give us back our personalities." 24 In looking at contemporary lyrics and music, the students will see that different historical periods, though displaying a variety of faces, will still reflect different guises of the same general character. The America of the 1880s, for example, will begin to project a personality resembling yet distinct from the America of the 1850s and the 1950s, and by the end of the unit of study students should gain a capability to pinpoint elements of diction, allusion, and association that prove that to be so.
Closure
Students will produce brief encapsulations of the key distinctions of each historical era—the hallmarks which make those eras unmistakable from any other, and the cues and clues that other students should look for to identify each era.
Lesson 3: Close reading arguments and defense
Objectives
Students will learn to use rhetorical strategies and peer-editing skills to refine their ideas and analysis of poetry.
Materials
Selection of American Sonnets from handouts and the textbook, student notebooks, and a graphic organizer charting their choices for most effective rhyme, plot of the poem, inferences about the speaker and most effective use of diction.
Initiation
I will perform an analysis, using the graphic organizer, of a sonnet by Shakespeare (likely sonnet 18) whereby I will present contrasting views of the meaning of the poem and demonstrate the breadth of possible interpretation.
Procedure
The students will read through poems at least twice, with one reading occurring aloud before the entire class. The students will proceed to produce multiple inferences about the speaker, the plot of the poem, the most effective rhyme, the most effective three pieces of diction and their explanation why. They will then have to exchange with neighbors and disagree with at least one of the choices made by another student, after first highlighting a point of agreement with their own opinion.
This technique follows the pattern of Rogerian Argument, which I teach to my AP students, but which can be readily adapted to multiple levels. The students will be compelled to accurately describe what their colleagues agree to be observable or true about examples of poetry. They will characterize another person's argument about a common subject of study (in this case American sonnets), establish common ground, and then mark the distinction where they feel differently or uniquely about a work of verse. In some cases this process will highlight sharp disagreement while in other cases dispute will turn on nuance. In either case, they will mimic in class what poets of each era produced as their artistic output—multiple perspectives in a common period of time as expressed through a shared form.
Closure
The students will write a brief reflection on the difference between their reading and analysis of one of the sonnets covered before and after the process of reading, and collaborative "argument" over the authorial choices within the poem relating to diction, rhyme, plot, etc.
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