Poetry!

The following lesson was designed with the purpose of educating students about poetry by introducing them to different literary devices and different forms of poetry. This can be differentiated by choosing different kinds of poetry for the lesson, for example using different levels of poetry for those who are at different reading levels.

Know: Students will be able to know and identify: basic components of poetry and what elements contribute to making something a poem.

Understand: Students will be able to understand that there are many forms to poetry, and what differentiates certain poems from one another (i.e. a haiku from a sonnet). Students will also be able to understand that all poetry is subjective, and technically there is no ‘right’ way to write a poem, only structures that some people chose to follow.

Do: Students will compose a small anthology of their favorite poems (at least ten poems at least five authors) and every poem will be accompanied by a minimum of three sentences answering the questions they were provided (differentiated questions based on readiness). 

 

Overview of lesson: First students will fill out a KWL sheet about what they know about poetry, so as to give me a clear perspective on what they do and do not know. I will then have a lesson about the fundamentals of poetry, such as the literary devices used in poetry and the different kinds of poems that there are. I will provide each student with an index worksheet of all terms and concepts that are discussed in the lesson for their reference during the course of this lesson. Each student will then be given a poem, in which they will need to identify the types of literary devices used and the type of poem. Once that is completed the students will be split into pairs (based on readiness so a student with a more advanced readiness will be paired with someone of standard readiness) where they will be required to fill out a Venn-diagram which compares and contrasts the two poems. The purpose of that is to show the students that, regardless of language complexity at the core all poetry is built on the same things.

            Students will then be asked to write three poems, a sonnet, a haiku, and an ode. They will also be required to create a mini poetry anthology which contains a minimum of ten poems. Each poem choice must be accompanied by a few sentences answering the questions: what elements are used to make this a poem? What kind of a poem is this? And why did you chose this poem?

            Objectives: Students will be able to identify elements in poetry, and create their own poetry. One of the main goals is to tier the students knowledge of poetry so that they can properly analyze/breakdown the poems in their anthology.

            Assessment: Students will be graded on participation. They will be graded on if they composed poetry meeting the criteria (not on the content or prettiness of the poetry) and their assessment of the poems in their anthology.