Lesson Plan: Writing about Poetry
English
Objective
To introduce students to close reading poetry and using writing to understand reading; to prepare them to write a 4-6 page essay on a single poem
Total Estimated Time
50 minutes
Work Completed Before Class
Students have read selected poems and the chapter on “Versification” from the Norton Anthology of Poetry (or other article on rhyme, meter, etc.).
In Class
- Have a conversation with your class about what close reading means and why we do it. (5-10 minutes)
- Go over rhyme and meter with a specific poem or stanza and discuss how students might use their observations on form to gain a greater understanding of the poem. (10 minutes)
- Read the poem aloud asking students to listen for rhyme and meter and for one moment in the poem that stands out to them (could be a stanza, a line, or a phrase). Although we often have students read aloud, in this case we want students to be able to listen carefully. (3-5 minutes, depending on length of poem)
- Ask students to freewrite for 3-5 minutes on the moment that stood out to them. They should write everything they can possibly think of about that moment. (3-5 minutes)
- Ask students to draw a line beneath that writing and then write for another five minutes on the relation between the localized passage they have chosen and the poem as a whole. (5 minutes)
- Go through the poem stanza by stanza, asking students to share what they wrote and collaboratively building an argument about the poem from their readings. All students should contribute something. (10-15 minutes depending on how long the poem is and how many students you have. Note: in our class, nobody wrote about the first two stanzas of the poem; everyone wrote about the last two, which threw off the discussion a little!)
- If there’s any time left, wrap up by talking about how students can use writing to generate lots of material on a poem that can then be culled for their essays. This lesson shows students that there is a lot to say about even a short poem. It also provides an opportunity to discuss the need to relate local details to a larger argument (that is, it doesn’t matter if a poem is in iambic pentameter if you don’t have anything else to say about that fact!).
Lauren Holm and John Plotz
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