Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Mini Lesson: Understatement

Resource: http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/f02/art105-i.html

“Understatement is the purposeful use of language that downplays a situation, as in Mark Twain’s statement, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” A familiar example in poetry occurs at the end of Frost’s “Fire and Ice”: “…if it had to perish twice,/I think I know enough of hate/To say that for destruction ice/Is also great/And would suffice.” When Mercutio is dying in Romeo and Juliet, he uses understatement in speaking of his mortal wound: “… ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.”( cited from http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/definitions/understatement-39)

Click the link to view a Japanese ink painting.

What are the elements in the painting you can see? What are the elements that are absent in the painting but you can still “see” with your 6th sense or mind’s eye?

Why can we infer meanings from things that are absent?

How do we infer meaning from what’s absent?

Independent Practice:

Resource: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/178804

Read a poem by William Carlos Williams

The Red Wheelbarrowby William Carlos Williamsso much depends upona red wheel barrowglazed with rain waterbeside the white chickens.

Notice & Focus

1. What are your observations of the poem using your five senses? ( What’s present to you?)

2. What is absent that you have noticed?

Method:

1. What connects all the things that you have observed ? What does the connection( or disconnection)suggest?

2. Why does the poem leave out things unsaid or nondescript? How does the absence of things contribute to  the overall meaning of the poem?( anomaly) Is the “absence” of descriptions effective for the poet to convey the overall meaning of the poem?

So what?

1. What claim can we make based on what we have observed?

2. What claim can we  make based on what we have observed that is absent?

3. What’s the overall claim can we make based on both?

Exit Slip: Quick Write-

What have you learned about reading from today’s lesson?

Homework: Write a paragraph describing the importance of absence in a literary work and art.

Objectives: Students will use shape ( enjambment)  and the concept of absence or minimalism to write a poem on a subject of their choice.

Aim: How do we use enjambment and the minimalist approach to compose a poem?

Do Now: Share  our paragraphs on the importance of the concept of absence.

Mini Lesson:

1. On visual Poetry 

2. What’s minimalism? How is it reflected in poetry composition? See the poem ” Thirteen Different Ways of Looking at a Black Bird” by Wallace Stevens.

•  repetition
• Spare and stripped to it essentials
• Japanese Zen philosophy
• metonymy

Independent Practice

Write a poem on a topic of your choice and create a visual using enjambment technique.

Write a minimalist poem in which you use examples of metonymy to maximize the meaning. Take the Red Wheel Barrow  AND Thirteen Different Ways of Looking at a Black Bird as examples.

Exit Slip: What was it like working on specific word choices?

Homework: Complete the 1st draft of the poem.

 

Lesson 8

Objectives: Students will use the principal of minimalism to guide their revision of the poem; they will also work on the word choice to convey complex ideas through the poetic device of metonymy.

Aim: How do we use the principal of minimalist poetry to guide our word choice in revising the poem?

Text:

• ” The Red Wheelbarrow” by W.C. Williams;
• “Thirteen Different Ways of Looking at a Black Bird” by Wallace Stevens.
•  On visual Poetry
• Japanese Zen philosophy
• Glossary of Literary Terms- Metonymy, Motif

Agenda

1. Do Now
2. Review
3. Mini Lesson
4. Independent Practice
5. Exist Slip
6. Homework Assignment

Do Now:

Read part of  the poem ” Thirteen Different Ways of Looking at a Black Bird” and identify the  major characteristics of a minimalist poem. Use ” Notice & Focus”, Method in the exercise. We’ll share our observations.

Mini Lesson- Characteristics of minimalism

• precise diction – metonymy: A name transfer takes place to demonstrate an association of a whole to a part
• imagery
• repetition ( motif)
• sound
• enjambment ( line break)

Let’s use the Red Wheelbarrow poem as an example-

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

• Diction: depends, wheel barrow ( metonymy for man’s work), rain ( metonymy for nature) and chicken ( most common farm animal for humans’ survival)
• Imagery : ” glazed with rain”, ” red wheel barrow” and ” white chicken” create a simple image of a tranquil but productive farm
• repetition: ” rain” & “water” suggest the importance of nature ( so much depends on …”
• sound: end rhyme ( depends & chicken) indicates a circle of life; ” glazed with rain” creates the refreshing mood ( spring drizzle) and world is renewed
• enjambment: “depends/on”,” rain/water” and “white/chicken” create unexpected responses to life
• So what: life so much depends on the man’s work and nature’s blessing. With smallest things in life, tranquility and peace  will be regained.

Independent Practice-

1. Pick any topic that is important or interesting to you for your poem , for example, family, friendship, nature, independence, school, peer pressure, global warming, etc.
2. If you have completed the 1st draft of the poem, use the guidelines to revise. After revision, ask your partner to do a peer review. Write your comments directly on your partner’s paper.
3. If you have not started, use a semantic web to help you brain storm.
4. Friendship-metonymy, imagery, motif=>metonymy——-, imagery———, motif———–

Exist Slip: What is the most useful and challenging experiences you have had today working with the composition of a minimalist poem?

Homework: Use what you have learned from today’s lesson and comments from your partner to revise your poem. The 2nd draft is due tomorrow. We’ll share the poems tomorrow in class. Be prepared to read your poem.

Lesson 9

” We grow accustomed to the Dark –“ by Emily Dickinson 

Objectives: Students will get to know what kind of poet Emily Dickinson is and her style of writing; they will use the knowledge about the poet to help them understand the meaning of the poem.

Aim: What kind of writer is Emily Dickinson? How is her writing style unique?

Text: ” We grow accustomed to the Dark –” by Emily Dickinson

Agenda-

Do Now:  Click open the website

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/dickinson.html  ; http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/index.shtml
and read about Emily Dickinson’s life and her writing. Jot down five facts about the poet’s writing that you found intriguing.

Acquisition– ‘Dickinson’s Poetic Style”

• Emily Dickinson’s style- ( cited from http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/dickinson.html )
  1. distilled or eliminated inessential language and punctuation from her poems
  2. leaves out helping verbs and connecting words;
  3. drops endings from verbs and nouns
  4. compress language; (the compression may be so drastic that the poem is incomprehensible;) it becomes a riddle or an intellectual puzzle
  5. she enjoyed words for their own sake, as words-This interest gives a number of her poems their form–they are really definitions of words, for example “Pain has an element of blank,” “Renunciation is a piercing virtue,” or “Hope is the thing with feathers.”
  6. Her linguistic mastery and sense of the dramatic combine in the often striking first lines of her poems, such as “Just lost when I was saved!,” “I like a look of Agony,” and “I can wade grief.”
  7. Dickinson consistently uses the meters of English hymns. This is undoubtedly one reason why modern composers like Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland have set her poems to music and why the dancer Martha Graham choreographed them as a ballet.
  8. She uses the dash to emphasize, to indicate a missing word or words, or to replace a comma or period.
  9. She changes the function or part of speech of a word; adjectives and verbs may be used as nouns; for example, in “We talk in careless–and in loss,” careless is an adjective used as a noun.
  10. She frequently uses be instead of is or are. She tends to capitalize nouns, for no apparent reason other than that they are nouns.
  11. Her disregard for the rules of grammar and sentence structure

Independent Practice

The poem

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye —

A Moment — We uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darkness —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.

Each group works on the assigned stanza of the poem and does the following. Copy the stanza on top of the poster paper, draw a square to enclose it and write the responses below the stanza.

1. Identify the stylistic features as described above from the reading.
2. How is Dickinson’s poem different from other poems you have read? Do you like Dickinson’ style? Why or why not?
3. How is “dark” described in each stanza? What kind of literary technique does the poet use to describe it? What does it mean?
4. What’s the motif( the repeated imagery) of the poem? How does the motif help reveal the meaning of the poem?
5. How are last two lines of each stanza different from the 1st two lines? ( hint: find words or phrases that are opposite in meaning to the ones in the 1st two lines).
6. Why doe the poet bring out such  a contrast?

Group 1We grow accustomed to the Dark — When light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye —

Group 2  A Moment — We uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect —

 

Group 3And so of larger — Darkness — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within —

Group 4 The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see —

 

Group 5Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight.

Exit Slip: What is the one “new” thing you have learned today about poetry and its writing?

Homework: Respond to the Independent Practice  questions individually and complete all the questions in your notebook.

Lesson 10 

Objectives: Students will study and understand the emotional undertone of Dickinson’s poem.

Aim: How to “re-live our own experiences through Dickinson’s intensity and with her emotional and intellectual clarity”?

Do Now: Respond to Dickinson’s remark about poetry, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?“

Mini Lesson: Diction and Tone/Emotion

1. Capture the moment- use the real life experience to set the stage for a more sophisticated discourse

2. Shift in meaning: when does the poet discuss the darkness literally? Metaphorically?

Independent Practice

How is the motif of “darkness portrayed by Dickinson in her poem?

1. Based on each stanza of the poem, make a list of the words that are used for their literal meaning.
2. Make a list of words that are used metaphorically.
3. Explain the meaning of each metaphor.

Transfer: Make up a metaphor to describe any shade of meanings of “darkness” .

Homework: Write a paragraph discussing “How is the motif of ‘darkness’ portrayed by Dickinson in her poem? “. Provide textual evidence for your interpretation.

Lesson 11 “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”

Objectives: Exploring the poet, Emily Dickinson, and poems; creating context by studying the poet’s language and physical environment that fueled her poetry.

Aim:  How do online resources of a poet’s home and a guide to the language that they used provide context to the study of their poetry?

Agenda-

Do Now:  Explore the Emily Dickinson Museum in small groups to learn more about her homestead, its importance to her as a writer, and to help us interpret the poem. Review the properties of Dickinson’s family. Find five key facts on the following properties. Use the guiding questions to help you. http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/

Row 1 – Homestead	Row 2 – Evergreens	Row 3 – Landscape
When was the Homestead built and where was it located?	How do you think the Evergreens could have influenced Dickinson’s writing?	What does Dickinson’s study of botany and possession of a sample of plant specimens reveal about her?

Mini Lesson
Poets like Dickinson use words sparingly, which intensifies the significance of every word.

• The lexicon (vocabulary) chosen by the poet influences subtleties of the poem, which determine cadence, tone, voice, and the overall message.
• How does our home environment influence our speaking and writing?
• What are the implications of the words chosen and those omitted?

Independent Practice: http://edl.byu.edu/introduction.php

• Work in small groups. Copy the stanza and questions into Word. Use the Emily Dickinson Lexicon page above to look up words that you find important in the poem. This resource will help us learn subtle clues in the meaning of the words that may no longer be commonly used.  Example: Think about the image in the first line of the lamp.  Do people still hold lamps?
• Think about the word choices Dickinson used and why she used them in the stanza for assigned to your group.
  • Which words do you think Dickinson used:
    • For alliteration?
    • Cadence?
    • Tone?
    • Emotion?
    • Precision of meaning?
• Take turns reading the lines of the stanza aloud. Why did you read it in the way that you did? Think about emphasis, pause, and when you chose to take a breath.
• Support your understanding of each stanza with evidence from the poem by asking some questions:
  • What word or phrase made you think the way you did?
  • Why did you find this word important to Dickinson’s meaning/tone?

Group 1 We grow accustomed to the Dark — When light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye —

Group 2  A Moment — We uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect —

 

Group 3 And so of larger — Darkness — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within —

Group 4 The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see —

Group 5 Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight.

Reflection: How does your home environment influence your own writing?

Homework : Find other poems of Dickinson and discover the connection between her life and craft. Write about the connections between the physical spaces she lived in and the art she produced.

Lesson 12

Objectives: Students will become familiar with the structure of an English Sonnet and understand how the knowledge about sonnets can help them probe the poet’s intention and attitude.

Aim: How does the poet use irony to convey a sense of pride?

Text: Yet Do I Marvel By Countee Cullen 1903–1946

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

Do Now: 

Group#1	Group #2	Group # 3	Group 4/ Group 5
Look up Countee Cullen,the black poet(1903-1946) and his role in Harlem Renaissance.	Look up what each allusion means as well as its origin- Tantalus Sisyphus	Look up the definitions of the new vocabulary words- quibble fickle caprice Inscrutable catechism strewn compels	Group 4:Look up the poetic devices- allusion alliteration metonymy   Group 5: Research on Countee Cullen’s major literary works. What’s te importance f his works?

Mini Lesson-

1. The structure of an English Sonnet and its intention-
   • a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter
   • Its seven rhymes are arranged in two quatrains, abab and cdcd, and one sextet eeffgg.
   • In each quatrains, the poet makes observations and poses his problems
   • In the sextet the poet draws a general conclusion from these observations.
   • The final couplet of the poem offers a conclusion, in this case, a dramatic transformation from the general observation into a statement about his own position in the world.
2. What’s the observations the poet made or problems posed in the 1st quatrain?

3. I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, How is God described? Who is “kind” and who is “blind”? Whose “flesh” does the poem refer to “that mirrors Him”? What’s the irony? What’s the tone? How does the irony help bring up the speaker’s question?

4. What’s the observations the poet observed or problems posed in the 2nd quatrian?

5. Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. How is God described omnipotent? (all-knowing) How do Sisyphus and Tantalus’s conditions mirror human plight? How is God’s relationship to His subjects portrayed? ( consider “make plain” & “declare” vs ” baited” & “struggle”) What are the contrasting tones? How do the contrasting tones help bring up the 2nd problem?

6. What conclusion or dramatic transformation does the poet make in the sextet ?

7. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing! Who is inscrutable? Whose mind is “strewn with petty cares”? How does the sharp contrast prepare the reader for the conclusion? What does “awful” mean here? Whose brain and hand? Which word suggests dramatic transformation? What does the poet marvel and why? What’s the final tone? How does the ending tone reveal how the poet feels towards his ethnicity?

Independent Practice-

Each row completes answering the questions for each section of the sonnet. Work in pairs or groups of three. Copy in Word Doc and complete the worksheet.

Exist Slip: List three things you have learned today about a sonnet or fixed form poetry.

Homework:  How does the poet use irony to convey a sense of pride? Use textual evidence from the sonnet to support your answer.

Lesson 13  Yet Do I Marvel By Countee Cullen 1903–1946

Objectives: Students will be able to understand that poets write about social problems by contextualizing the poems .

Aim: How do poets reveal social issues through poetry?

Do Now: Share your answer to the questions( 1st quatrain, 2nd quatrain and the sextet) with a student in your class who has worked on a different portion of the sonnet. If you didn’t complete, do it now.

Mini Lesson : Contextualize

1. In what circumstances did Johnson compose his poem “Lift and Sing” ? For what purpose?
   • Look at the year it was composed.
   • His life experiences
   • the social setting when the poem was written
2. In what circumstances did Cullen write his poem” Do I Marvel”? For what purpose?
   • the time frame of his life
   • his role in Harlem Renaissance
   • his pride being a black poet of his time

Meaning Making-

1. Write a short essay response to “How does the poet use irony to convey a sense of pride?” Provide as much textual evidence as possible.
2. Identify the social issues implied in each poem and the poets’ attitude toward them.

Transfer: Do you feel poets are as eloquent as Civil Rights Movement leaders when they “spoke” for African Americans’ rights?

H.W.#4 Explain why poets are as eloquent as Civil Rights Movement leaders when they “spoke” for African Americans’ rights.