Backward Design Unit Proposal
Backwards Design Unit Plan
Unit Cover PageUnit Title: PoetryGrade Level: 9-12
Subject/Topic Area(s): Poetry
Key Words:
Designed By: Stephanie HillTime Frame: 1 month
School District: School:
Brief Summary of Unit (including curricular context and unit goals):
For their Regents exam, students will need to explicate any poem that is put in front of them by pulling apart the specific literary elements that are used and showing how those elements contribute to a theme. Then they must show how that theme either compares or contrasts with another piece of literature (either another poem or a short story). This unit is meant to give them the skills needed to determine the themes and issues that are being addressed in poetry, as well as learn the techniques that poets use to help convey these themes and issues. Students will also be writing and presenting their own poetry in order to test out these techniques that they are learning as well as to respond to the themes and issues that arise in their study of the poetry we encounter throughout the unit.
Stage 1: Identify Desired Results
Established Goals:
- Students will be able to reach a deep understanding of a poem by carefully analyzing the diction
- Students will be able to read works with a common theme and compare the treatment of that theme by different authors
- Students will be able to interpret multiple levels of meaning and subtleties
- Students will be able to write interpretive and responsive essays (5 paragraph) to:
explain how author uses literary devices to convey meaning
examine development and impact: literary elements in texts/performances
What understandings are desired?
Students will understand that:
Poetry has a vast amount of meaning and emotion crammed into a very small space. An author accomplishes this feat by making every single word powerful and meaningful. Also by using specific literary techniques and powerful vocabulary that is meant to bring images and emotions to the reader. Nothing – not even the smallest comma, “the,” or space is put in haphazardly.
This means that when we read poetry, we can assume that each detail we can explicate from that poem was put there for a reason – we just have to figure out what meaning it carries with it.
Poetry is meant to be read again and again – with each reading building a better understanding and a deeper connection with the work.
When we write out own poetry and essays, we should also be certain to take care in making a few words meaningful and powerful.
What essential questions will be considered?
1.Are the images in poetry reflected in our lives today?
2.Can words on a page written long ago that deal with social/political issues of that time possibly incite passion and action in a reader today?
3.Can fewer, more precise and imaginative words express emotions more powerfully than pages of every day words?
4.Does the rhythm and flow of a poem affect the reader’s response to the theme(s) dealt with within the poem?
What key knowledge & skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?
Students will know:
My students will need to know how to find the figurative language, imagery, and symbolism that we have been working on in novels and short stories in the poems.
They will also need to be able to explore elements that are particular to poetry, such as:
- structure (stanzas, lines, sonnet forms, epic poetry, lymric, haiku)
- rhythm (meter, feet, repetition, enjambment)
- rhyme (internal and external)
- consonance, assonance, alliteration
- voice, audience, tone, mood, connotations
Once my students know this information, they can begin working on the skills that they will need to effectively use that information on the exam. This will include:
- reading a poem closely enough to be able to recognize these elements of a poem
- explicate the poem – unfold the meaning line by line and idea by idea
- explain how each of the elements of poetry and other literary elements work together to build a theme
- identify the themes of a poem
- compare and contrast the themes they identify with the themes of another poem or work of literature.
Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence
What evidence will show that students understand?
Performance Tasks(Describe one performance task in detail.)
Students will be asked to choose twopoems with powerful, comparable, themes. They will be asked to write a compare/contrast essay that analyzes how the speaker of each poem uses the poetic elements we have discussed (such as figurative language, structure, mood, etc) to enhance the themes and evoke emotions in the reader.
Assessment Task Blueprint
What understandings/goals will be assessed through this task?
Understandings:
Poetry has a vast amount of meaning and emotion crammed into a very small space. An author accomplishes this feat by making every single word powerful and meaningful. Also by using specific literary techniques and powerful vocabulary that is meant to bring images and emotions to the reader. Nothing – not even the smallest comma, “the,” or space is put in haphazardly.
This means that when we read poetry, we can assume that each detail we can explicate from that poem was put there for a reason – we just have to figure out what meaning it carries with it. /
- Students will be able to reach a deep understanding of a poem by carefully analyzing the diction
- Students will be able to read works with a common theme and compare the treatment of that theme by different authors
- Students will be able to interpret multiple levels of meaning and subtleties
- Students will be able to write interpretive and responsive essays (5 paragraph) to:
to the text: quote and paraphrase explain
how author uses literary devices to convey
meaning
By what criteria will student products/performances be evaluated?
Student essays will be evaluated on a rubric that will assess them in the same criteria in which they will be assessed on the Regents exam: Meaning, Development, Organization, Language Use, and Conventions. They already have this rubric and have been assessed on it with ever essay they have written throughout the year.
Stage 2b: Determine acceptable evidence
What other evidence(in addition to performance tasks) needs to be collected in light of Stage 1 desired results?
Other evidence: (for example, tests, quizzes, work samples, observations)
Collect evidence that the students actually understand the poetry on their own. They should be able to read the poem and determine the theme(s) independent of my guidance. For this, I would like to collect their initial, written reflections on the poetry they read independently in class and for homework. Then, after they begin to learn the literary elements, they will write paragraphs that explain how the literary element helps them figure out the theme.
I would also like to give them a quiz every week that asks them to define what terms we have learned so that I am sure they have the understanding of these literary elements so I know it is safe to move on to using the elements to analyze the poems.
Another performance task that I need from them is a comparison of two poems that explore similar themes. This could be done in the form of a quiz. It needs to be with poems that they have not encountered before, so that I can be sure that their determination of the theme is their own work.
I would also like to assess my students in other, more creative ways. For example, I’d like to have them write their own poem for each of the literary elements that we study in class. I would check these poems for completion, and then the students could choose the one that they like the most to refine and present to the class in a poetry reading of their own work at the end of the unit.
Student self-assessment and reflection:
Students will be required to turn in a self-grading sheet with any essay that they turn in to me.
Students will also be given self-assessment exit slips periodically that ask them to take a mini quiz that will indicate to them (and to me) if they understood the material that was covered.