Poetry Lessons: "Ode to the West Wind" by Shelley

Day 1 Learning Objectives: Students will respond to a set of multiple-choice questions based on their analytical study of the poem, "Ode to the West Wind", by Percy Shelly, a Romatic Era poet; students will also make a glossary of literary terms ( with definitions and examples) that are key to understanding the MC questions based on the poem.

Aim: What does the literary term such as synecdoche or apostrophe mean anyway? Why is understanding terms such as this essential to critical reading of a literary text?

• Resource 1:Literary terms
• Resource 2:Tropes
• Resource 3: Schemes

Agenda

Do Now: Listen to the audio of "Ode to the West Wind " and underline any word or line that you want to explore further later ( ask questions or raise a discussion point). When the reading is over, pick your favorite line(s) and a " burning question" and park them on the poster paper.

Teaching Point-

1. A Terza Rima Poem-A terza rima is an Italian form of poetry first used by Dante Alighieri.

   It consists of stanzas of three lines (or tercets) usually in iambic pentameter. It follows an interlocking rhyming scheme, or chain rhyme. This is where the middle of each stanza rhymes with the first and last line of the following stanza. There is no set length to this form, as long as it follows the pattern as follows:

   ABA
   BCB
   CDC
   DED
   
   With the last stanza as a couplet rhyming with the middle line of the previous stanza. In this case, EE.

2. An ode is a lyric poem, usually addressing a particular person or thing. It originated in Ancient Greece, and the Pindaric ode (so-called because it was written by the Theban poet Pindar, 518 ? 442 BC) was based on a pattern of three stanzas called the strophe, antistrophe and epode. It was performed by a chorus, which walked along one side of the orchestra chanting the strophe and down the other side chanting the antistrophe, then came to a standstill before the audience and chanted the epode. This performance was repeated with each set of three stanzas.
   
   The Horatian ode (invented by the Latin poet Horace in about 65 BC) was adopted in the early 19th century by John Keats for one of his most famous poems, 'Ode to a Nightingale'. Many modern odes, however, are irregular in form, such as 'Intimations of Immortality' from 'Recollections of Early Childhood' by William Wordsworth.
   
   While the ode does not necessarily have a regular metre or fixed rhyme scheme, Kit Wright's tongue-in-cheek Ode to Didcot Power Station uses both - as well as a repertoire of old-fashioned language - to parody the lofty style traditionally associated with this form. As Wright says in his introduction, "if you're going to have an ode, why not go the whole hog?"
3. APOSTROPHE: Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, apostrophe is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present: For instance, John Donne commands, "Oh, Death, be not proud." King Lear proclaims, "Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, / More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child / Than the sea-monster." Death, of course, is a phenomenon rather than a proud person, and ingratitude is an abstraction that hardly cares about Lear's opinion, but the act of addressing the abstract has its own rhetorical power. An apostrophe is an example of a rhetorical trope (Tropes are figures of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words, as opposed to schemes, which only deal with patterns of words.)
4. Romatic Era in literary history- Later Romanticism

   The work of the later romantics John Keats (1795-1821) and his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822; husband of Mary Shelley) is marked by an attempt to make language beautiful, and by an interest in remote history and exotic places. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) uses romantic themes, sometimes comically, to explain contemporary events. Romanticism begins as a revolt against established views, but eventually becomes the established outlook. Wordsworth becomes a kind of national monument, while the Victorians make what was at first revolutionary seem familiar, domestic and sentimental.

Activities:

Each group of 3-4 will work on one section of the poem and complete the following-

1. Answer the assignment multiple choice questions
2. Identify and create a a glossary of literary terms ( with definitions if you are unfamiliar with the term) that are embedded in the section, which are key to understanding the MC question(s). Provide an example for each term.
3. Create two multiple-choice questions based on your assigned section of the poem and pay attention in particular to the usage of literary terms or other new vocabulary you have learned today.
4. Generate 5 questions based on the section and prioritize them in the order of importance.

HOMEWORK: Complete the 4 activites above and write a Terza Rima poem as a reflection on today's lesson.

Day 2

Learning Objectives: Students will complete a set of multiple-choice questions based on their analytical study of the poem, "Ode to the West Wind", by Percy Shelly, a Romatic Era poet; students will also complete making a glossary of literary terms ( with definitions and examples) that are key to understanding the MC questions based on the poem. They will also do a passage-based focused free writing based on the assigned section.

Aim: What is the meaning of the poem? Why does Shelley choose the "west wind" as the subject of its poem? What is "Passage-based focused freewriting" and how can we use it to derive meaning from a text?

Agenda-

Do Now: Immediately go to your group, share your study notes about the assigned section and decide what will be posted on the poster board as your final presentaion. If you still have questions that cannot be resolved in your group, park them on the "Teacher's Desk".

Teaching Point

• Nature as a subject in Romantic poets' work- Whereas the older generation of Romantic poets viewed nature as a source of truth and authentic experience, the younger generation largely viewed nature as a source of beauty and aesthetic experience. In this poem, Shelley explicitly links nature with art by finding powerful natural metaphors with which to express his ideas about the power, evolvement , transformation and ultimate effect of aesthetic expression. Shelley also hints at the paradoxical nature of the poetic traditions-the obligatory recognition of such conventions and the necessity to break away from its confinement, which in a sense is like the west wind that "preserves and destroys".
• Passage-based focused freewriting: The best way to approch this type of writing is to do one of the following-
  • making interpretations,
  • uncovering the assumptions ( moving backward , i.e. if the text makes us believe X, what else must it already believe?)
  • making the implicit explicit, i.e. digging deep into certain diction in the poem- why does Shelley use it? What could it mean if replaced by another?
  • raising questions and describing challenges, etc. - making quries for future discussions

Activities:

1. Collect the Terza Rima poem.
2. Complete the glossary of relevant literary terms in your section.
3. Create two multiple-choice questions based on your assigned section of the poem and pay attention in particular to the usage of literary terms or other new vocabulary you have learned today.
4. Generate 3 questions based on the section and prioritize them in the order of importance. Provide the answer if you can.
5. Do a passage-based focused freewriting based on your section of the poem. Bear in mind the four points as mentioned in the lesson.

Application: How does the passage-based focused freewriting help you derive the meaning from the poem?

Homework: Use the "passage-based focused freewriting" strategy to respond to the rest of the poem- one separate paragraph for each section ( a total of 5 paragraphs). Due on Monday 12/03.