MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGLISH INSTRUCTION: Unit 3, Lesson 1 1
Focus of the lesson: using knowledge of poetic structures to aid comprehension
WHAT IS POETRY?
ACTIVITY 3-1-1
Read the answer to the question (What is poetry?) at the following website:
Mrs. Dowling's Poetry Points
Please read everything on the page. Then, without looking back at the site, write at least five things that you learned about poetry from this site.
Following are some famous poets’ definitions of poetry:
· "The best words in the best order." Samuel Taylor Coleridge
· "The record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds." Percy Shelley
· "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that it is poetry." Emily Dickinson
· "A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words." Robert Frost
· "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." William Wordsworth
At the end of this unit, you will write your own definition of poetry.
As we examine various aspects of poetry, you will be reading a variety of poems. On the next page is a list of strategies to use when reading poetry to increase your comprehension and appreciation of the poems.
How to Read a Poem
Poems can be read many ways. The following steps describe one approach. Of
course not all poems require close study and all should be read first for pleasure.
• Look at the poem’s title: What might this poem be about?
• Read the poem straight through without stopping to analyze it (aloud, if possible).
This will help you get a sense of how it sounds, how it works, what it
might be about.
• Start with what you know. If the poem is difficult, distinguish between what
you do and do not understand. If permissible, underline the parts you do not
immediately understand.
• Check for understanding: Write a quick “first-impression” of the poem by
answering the questions, “What do you notice about this poem so far?” and
“What is this poem about?”
• Look for patterns. Watch for repeated, interesting, or even unfamiliar use of
language, imagery, sound, color, or arrangement. Ask, “What is the poet trying
to show through this pattern?”
• Look for changes in tone, focus, narrator, structure, voice, patterns. Ask: “What
has changed and what does the change mean?”
• Identify the narrator. Ask: Who is speaking in the poem? What do you know
about them?
• Check for new understanding. Re-read the poem (aloud, if you can) from start
to finish, underlining (again) those portions you do not yet understand. Explain
the poem to yourself or someone else.
• Find the crucial moments. The pivotal moment might be as small as the word
but or yet. Such words often act like hinges within a poem to swing the poem
in a whole new direction. Also pay attention to breaks between stanzas or
between lines.
• Consider form and function. Now is a good time to look at some of the poet’s
more critical choices. Did the poet use a specific form, such as the sonnet?
How did this particular form---e.g., a sonnet---allow them to express their
ideas? Did the poet use other specific poetic devices which you should learn so
you can better understand the poem? Ask. “How is the poet using punctuation in the poem?”
• Check for improved understanding. Read the poem through again, aloud if
possible. Return to the title and ask yourself what the poem is about and how
the poem relates to the title.
Poetic structures and elements that help to communicate its message are:
1. RHYME - identical or similar recurring final sounds in words within or at the ends of lines of verse, e.g., farm, harm
When the last words in each line of a poem are arranged in a pattern, they are labeled as follows to describe the RHYME SCHEME:
Whose woods these are I think I know. a
His house is in the village, though; a
He will not see me stopping here b
To watch his woods fill up with snow. a
My little horse must think it queer b
To stop without a farmhouse near b
Between the woods and frozen lake c
The darkest evening of the year. b
He gives his harness bells a shake c
To ask if there is some mistake. c
The only other sound's the sweep d
Of easy wind and downy flake. c
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, d
But I have promises to keep, d
And miles to go before I sleep, d
And miles to go before I sleep. d
As you can see, a different letter is used to identify each end sound that is rhymed.
ACTIVITY 3-1-2
COMPLETE THE ACTIVITY ON RHYME ON THE NEXT PAGE.
ACTIVITY ON RHYME
DIRECTIONS: Use the spaces provided at the ends of the lines in the poem to label the rhyme scheme of the poem. You may wish to look at Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods” (previous page) for an example of how this is done.
Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, _____
On a white heal-all1, holding up a moth _____
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- _____
Assorted characters of death and blight _____
Mixed ready to begin the morning right, _____
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- _____
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, _____
And dead wings carried like a paper kite. _____
What had that flower to do with being white, _____
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? _____
What brought the kindred spider to that height,_____
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?_____
What but design of darkness to appall2?-- _____
If design govern in a thing so small. _____
1heal-all = a common herb of the mint family, thought to cure most diseases
2appall = to shock; to fill with dismay
2. RHYTHM - the pattern of recurring strong and weak syllabic stress
The simplest demonstration of rhythm can be found the silly poetic form called a limerick. Strong syllables, which would be accented or stressed, are printed in bold.
There was a young lady from Hyde,
Who ate a green apple and died.
While her lover lamented,
The apple fermented,
Making cider inside her insides.
Rhythm is also easy to hear in a nursery rhyme:
Hickory, dickory, dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
And down he run
Hickory, dickory, dock
ACTIVITY 3-1-3
COMPLETE THE ACTIVITY ON RHYTHM ON THE NEXT PAGE.
ACTIVITY ON RHYTHM
DIRECTIONS: Both poems that follow are written about love. Based on the rhythm of each poem, which do you think has a more serious and thoughtful tone and message?
Write your response in the space provided. Be sure to use specific examples from the poems to support your ideas.
Poem 1 – LOVE IS A WORD
Love is a word that is constantly heard,
Hate is a word that is not.
Love, I’m told, is more precious than gold.
Love, I have read, is hot. 5
But Hate is the verb that to me is superb,
And Love but a drug on the mart.
Any kiddie in school can Love like a fool,
But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
Poem 2 – BEAUTY AND LOVE
Beauty and love are all my dream;
They change not with the changing day;
Love stays forever like a stream
That flows but never flows away;
And beauty is the bright sun-bow 5
That blossoms on the spray that showers
Where the loud water falls below,
Making a wind among the flowers.
- Andrew Young
______
3. REPETITION – repeated used of sounds, words, or ideas for effect and emphasis
A good example of repetition can be found in Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “If.” Notice in the last stanza of the poem how the word if introduces each goal the father wants his young son to achieve.
from “If” by Rudyard Kipling
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
Repetition of the word if emphasizes the idea that many other choices are possible that would not result in the father’s ideal of manhood.
ACTIVITY 3-1-4
COMPLETE THE ACTIVITY ON REPETITION ON THE FOLLOWING
PAGE.
ACTIVITY ON REPETITION IN POETRY
DIRECTIONS: Read the poem “Forgotten Language” by Shel Silverstein (found at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/forgotten-language/ ). Then complete the activity that follows.
In this poem, a major poetic device is the repetition of the word once. In the space provided, explain what you think the poet wants to accomplish by repeating this word at the beginning of so many lines in the poem. Think particularly about how this repetition affects the tone1 of the poem.
______
tone1 - the writer’s attitude toward his/her subject
For additional information about each of these poetic elements, link to the Holt online text, pp. 616-619. Notice particularly the advice about how to read a poem, found at the bottom of page 618 and on page 619.