Lesson 1- The Starting Point in Our P o E t R y Exploration
Before we get going, tell me what you think about poetry. And be honest! Use the Admit-Exit Slip shared with you in Google Classroom. This is what the form looks like...
Lesson 2 - What's next. We will watch the movie, Louder Than a Bomb, a documentary about the largest youth poetry contest in the world.
Here's the original documentary demo for this movie, which introduces viewers to four high school students from Chicago who found their voices through poetry. There names are Nova, Adam, Nate, and Lamar. While this is just an extended trailer, we will be watching the entire movie in class.
Here are some poems written and performed by the poets featured in the film. In clockwise order, starting with the top left, are Lamar (of Steinmetz College Prep in Chicago), Nova, Nate, and Adam.
|
|
|
Lesson 3 - Let's analyze some cool poems from the book, Poetry Speaks Who I Am.
You will be given a packet of poems selected from the book Poetry Speaks Who I Am, categorized by stations. Stations are numbered and named as follows:
Station 1 -- Who Am I? An exploration of identify in poetry
Station 2 -- Using Juxtaposition in Poetry: Placing two things together to create contrast
Station 3 -- Using Poetry to Tell a Story (Part 1)
Station 4 -- Using Poetry to Tell a Story (Part 2)
Station 5 -- Poems That Pack a Word Punch
Station 6 -- Name Dropping: Famous Poems & Poetry
Your Learning Task:
You will analyze each of these poems using the 4Ts of Poetry:
You will use Sutori to record your responses. The Sutori Poetry Log has been shared with you through Google Classroom.
SEE BELOW.
Below you will find the 4 Ts of Poetry Reference Page. Following that is an image of the Sutori you will be using for your analysis.
Station 1 -- Who Am I? An exploration of identify in poetry
- The Delight of Song of Tsoai-Talee by N. Scott Momaday
- Litany by Billy Collins
- What We Might Be, What We Are by X.J. Kennedy
- Vampire's Serenade by Dana Gioia
Station 2 -- Using Juxtaposition in Poetry: Placing two things together to create contrast
- How I Learned to Sweep by Julia Alvarez
- The Gladiator by Kevin Prufer
- Mascara by Elizabeth Spires
- What Are Heavy? by Christina Rossetti
Station 3 -- Using Poetry to Tell a Story (Part 1)
- Cinderella's Diary by Ron Koertge
- Caroline by Allison Joseph
- A Boy in a Bed in the Dark by Brad Sachs
- So Far by Naomi Shihab Nye
Station 4 -- Using Poetry to Tell a Story (Part 2)
- Pause by Nikki Grimes
- Free Period by David Yezzi
- Baseball by Bill Zavatsky
Station 5 -- Poems That Pack a Word Punch
- Good Girl by Molly Peacock
- Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney
- Seal by William Jay Smith
- Mediation by Kim Stafford
Station 6 -- Name Dropping: Famous Poems & Poetry
- Alone by Edgar Allan Poe
- Dreams by Langston Hughes
- If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking by Emily Dickinson
- The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
- Legacies by Nikki Giovanni
Your Learning Task:
You will analyze each of these poems using the 4Ts of Poetry:
- TOPIC -- What is the poem about?
- TONE -- What does the poet feel about the topic they are writing about?
- TECHNIQUE -- What ways of writing poetry does the poet use to achieve their effect?
- TO ME -- What personal connections do you make to the poem? What do you admire about the poem?
You will use Sutori to record your responses. The Sutori Poetry Log has been shared with you through Google Classroom.
SEE BELOW.
Below you will find the 4 Ts of Poetry Reference Page. Following that is an image of the Sutori you will be using for your analysis.
Reference Page -- 4 Ts of Poetry
(Also shared in Google Classroom)
Sutori Poetry Analysis Log for
Poetry Speaks Who I Am
(Also shared with your through Google Classroom)
Lesson 4 - Let's analyze some Spoken Word.
Use the slideshow below to find three Spoken word poems that speak to you. Use the second section on your Sutori Log to record your responses to the Spoken word poems you chose.
IMPORTANT! After you are done listening to each Spoken word poem, pause it before going on to the next poem. If you don't you will have more than one recording playing at the same time.
IMPORTANT! After you are done listening to each Spoken word poem, pause it before going on to the next poem. If you don't you will have more than one recording playing at the same time.
Slam Poems by Claudia Bestor
Lesson 5 - Let's write some poetry of our own.
After all of your new experiences with poetry, written and Spoken word, I hope you will be inspired to write some poetry of your own!
Some of you will be ready to write using only what you've learned so far, no additional inspiration needed, but some of you may need a little boost.
If that's you, then you can use the Google Doc called "Writer's Workshop - Taking Inspiration from POETRY SPEAKS WHO I AM", which has been shared with you in Google Classroom. A copy of the Doc is also embedded below. In this Doc, I have taken poems from POETRY SPEAKS WHO I AM and created templates for each one. You will see that I wrote poems of my own using those templates.
Additionally, you may use as a poetry-writing guide, the Google Doc I call "IDEA-TRY: Poetry You May Actually Want to Write" (also shared with you in Google Classroom and embedded below for you to see).
Your poems may be written by hand on paper, or they may be typed on a Google Doc or in a Google Slideshow or even using a design from Canva.
How many poems do you have to write? That's up to you, but at a minimum, you must write 3. They don't have to be long poems, and they can be about anything you like. I know you can do it!
Some of you will be ready to write using only what you've learned so far, no additional inspiration needed, but some of you may need a little boost.
If that's you, then you can use the Google Doc called "Writer's Workshop - Taking Inspiration from POETRY SPEAKS WHO I AM", which has been shared with you in Google Classroom. A copy of the Doc is also embedded below. In this Doc, I have taken poems from POETRY SPEAKS WHO I AM and created templates for each one. You will see that I wrote poems of my own using those templates.
Additionally, you may use as a poetry-writing guide, the Google Doc I call "IDEA-TRY: Poetry You May Actually Want to Write" (also shared with you in Google Classroom and embedded below for you to see).
Your poems may be written by hand on paper, or they may be typed on a Google Doc or in a Google Slideshow or even using a design from Canva.
How many poems do you have to write? That's up to you, but at a minimum, you must write 3. They don't have to be long poems, and they can be about anything you like. I know you can do it!
Inspiration #1 - Using Poetry Speaks Who I Am to start writing
Inspiration #2 - Using a variety of other sources to start writing
Bonus Learning (if you want to nerd out on poetry)
Here are some really great videos about the value of POETRY...
First, John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, shares a Marianne Moore poem about not liking poetry. Second, poet Daniel Tysdal takes viewers through a poetry writing workshop, memorializing his friend who died by suicide. Finally, poet Robert Pinsky takes viewers through his explanation about how poetry is to be consumed by using one's breath. To the right of the Pinsky video is the Robert Hayden poem he uses to demonstrate this notion.
|
|
|
|
|
Those Winter Sundays
BY ROBERT HAYDEN Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? |
