The Unit
This unit will set out to accomplish two major goals. First, it will outline a group of poems that complement a specific novel. This list is meant to offer options to any educator who wants to follow this plan. It will consist of 6-10 poems that, for a variety of reasons, can be introduced into a course of study to achieve a specific goal.
The second goal of this unit is to take a closer look at one poem for each novel being studied. The reason for choosing a particular poem will not be the same for each novel. Some poems will help clarify a challenging character, some will be presented to enhance the student understanding of a poignant theme, while others will be offered to illuminate the historical period of the text. This unit will cover almost the entirety of the school year. It is important to note here that all poems and novels must be covered by May 9th, 2018. This is the date that has been set for the AP Literature exam. In any case, though, for the purposes of this unit (and to allow time for a full review), April 2nd will serve as our completion date to provide an opportunity for the students to review prior to the exam.
Optional Text Set
Each of these poems provides a specific lens with which to view its associated novel. It will be imperative for teachers to have these options so that this unit can be malleable enough to not simply work one way. Each teacher may have different needs when teaching these works, which can be successfully taught using a variety of methods.
|
Novel |
Associated Poems |
|
Mrs. Dalloway |
Robert Frost- “Good Hours” B.H. Fairchild- “The Book of Hours” John Peale Bishop- “The Hours” Hazel Hall- “Hours” John Keats- “To Autumn” Samuel Taylor Coleridge- “Time, Real, and Imaginary” William Shakespeare- “Sonnet 49” Elizabeth Bishop- “A Cold Spring” (A response to Hopkins) Gerard Manley Hopkins- “Spring” Amy Nawrocki- “Mrs. Dalloway” Philip Larkin- “The Trees” |
|
Heart of Darkness |
Esther Belin- “Night Travel” Santee Frazier- “Mangled, Letters, and the Target Girl” Langston Hughes- “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” Joy Harjo- “Ah Ah” Simon Ortiz- “Culture and the Universe” Ramon Faaole Pele- “Human Speech- Poem #1” James K. Zimmerman- “The Emptiness of Thought” Gerard Manley Hopkins- “The Loss of the Eurydice” |
|
Things Fall Apart |
Adrian C. Louis- “The Sacred Circle” Joy Harjo- “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” Anne Bradstreet- “A Dialogue between Old England and New” Juan Felipe Herrera- “Exiles” Emily Dickinson- “A Loss of Something Ever I Felt” (959) Kanye West- “Ultralight Beam” |
|
Purple Hibiscus |
James Welch- “Dreaming Winter” Adam Soldofsky- “Fog Machine” Walt Whitman- “Song of Myself” (verses 1-5) Bai Juyi- “Illness and Idleness” Joshua Iosafo- “Brown Brother” Phillis Wheatley- “On Virtue” Sylvia Plath- “Daddy” Herman Melville- “The New Zealot to the Sun” |
|
Streetcar Named Desire |
Juan Felipe Herrera- “Almost Livin' Almost Dyin'” Amanda Bickett- “Streetcar Named Desire Found Poem” Tennessee Williams- “Life Story” Lord Byron- “And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair” W.H. Auden- “He watched with all his organs of concern” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- “The Bridge” Samuel Taylor Coleridge- “Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance” Gabriel Garcia Lorca- “The Unfaithful Housewife” Dylan Thomas- “I see the boys of summer” |
|
The Stranger |
Shin Yu Pai- “Burning Monk” Jennifer Michael Hecht- “Chicken Pig” Robert Frost- “Acquainted with the Night” Pablo Neruda- “A Dog Has Died” Alfred, Lord Tennyson- “The Charge of the Light Brigade” E.E. Cummings- “[As Freedom is a Breakfast Food]” Maya Angelou- “Caged Bird” Rudyard Kipling- “The Stranger” |
|
Waiting for Godot |
Zachary Schomburg- “The Fire Cycle” Lawrence Ferlinghetti- “Autobiography” Thomas Nashe- “In Time of Plague [Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss]” Wislawa Szymborska- “Clouds” Amiri Baraka- “Dope or The Liar” Adrienne Rich- “Dreamwood” Paul Laurence Dunbar- “We Wear the Mask” Samuel Beckett- “Morte de A.D.” |
|
King Lear |
John Keats- “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again” Lisa Sewall- “King Lear” Emily Dickinson- “Nature, Poem 37: A Thunder-storm” Edgar Allan Poe- “Alone” Robert Frost- “Storm Fear” Margaret Atwood- “King Lear in Respite Care” Matthew Arnold- “Growing Old” Ralph Waldo Emerson- “Terminus” Dylan Thomas- “Do not go gentle into that good night” Anne Sexton- “Admonitions To A Special Person” |
Primary Text Set
Below is the list of poems and the associated novels and plays that will be dissected in depth over the course of study. Each will be explored in greater depth over the course of the completed unit as a whole class. The other poems from the optional text set will serve as poems that can be studied in smaller groups and presented out to the class at large.
|
Novel/Play |
Author |
pages/date covered/weeks need to cover text |
Poem |
Author |
|
King Lear |
William Shakespeare |
144/(9/11-9/29)/3 |
“King Lear in Respite Care” |
Margaret Atwood |
|
Mrs. Dalloway |
Virginia Woolf |
216 (10/2-10/27)/4 |
“Dulce et Decorum Est” |
Wilfred Owen |
|
Heart of Darkness |
Joseph Conrad |
62 (10/30- 11/10)/2 |
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” |
Langston Hughes |
|
Things Fall Apart |
Chinua Achebe |
148 (11/13-12/1)/3 |
“Ultralight Beam” |
Kanye West |
|
Purple Hibiscus |
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
336 (12/4-1/12)/6 |
“Daddy” |
Sylvia Plath |
|
Streetcar Named Desire |
Tennessee Williams |
72 (1/15-2/2)/3 |
“The Unfaithful Housewife” |
Federico Garcia Lorca |
|
The Stranger |
Albert Camus |
154 (2/5-3/2)/4 |
“Acquainted with the Night” |
Robert Frost |
|
Waiting for Godot |
Samuel Beckett |
96 (3/5-3/23)/3 |
“Dreamwood” |
Adrienne Rich |
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