Lesson Plan
I might as well get the ball rolling on this blog thing. It is like when a family sits down to dinner and there is this big platter of turkey and no one wants to take the first piece. Everyone is waiting for someone to take a piece so I will. Come to think of it, it is nothing like that because there is no food, but the dinner table is a metaphor for this blog. That leads me seamlessly (well not quite) into my lesson on 'extended metaphor'. This is the first lesson I ever taught to a group of students that were not students with IEPs and as fate would have it, I got to teach it 5 times in one day playing with it until I eventually came up with this:
OBJECTIVE: How does this poem teach us about extended metaphors and playing with conventions?
DO NOW: Take out your notebooks, and write about your thoughts and feelings when a teacher says, "Ok class, today we are going to be reading poetry". (5 minutes of writing)
Then...Let's share our thoughts about poetry; teacher puts thoughts onto the blackboard.
Review Literary elements:
Tone, Metaphor, Extended Metaphor, Point of view, imagery, Conventions
Next...pass out copies of poem: "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins (from his anthology POETRY 180, to class. you can find it here: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/ . Talk about Billy Collins, assembled a book called "Poetry 180" intended for high school students. The book, a "complilation" of poems by different authors, explain how this is what is meant by the term anthology. He wanted poetry to be accessible to anyone and make people love poetry again.
Then... Read poem out loud, ask for voluntreer readers and split up poem. Have students think about Collins' ideals as they read/listen. Discuss specific passages of poem based on students' response. What is this about? What is being compared? How does this poem challenge and/or support your ideas about poetry from the "DO NOW". Can you see how those thoughts you had were poetry conventions?
In groups, come up with the answer to the questions: What is the extended metaphor in his poem? Why did Collins choose the images he chose?
Homework: write about one of your favorite songs. Are songs poetry? Talk about metaphors in that song.
posted by Jayson Love @ 11:10 AM
6 Comments:
Thanks for being the first student teacher to post. The poetry 180 site is a great resource for poetry that is approachable for adolescents.
Love Poetry 180! And props for posting first!
I would really like to hear how your students responded to your lesson. Can you talk a little about that?
I can't take full credit for teaching a poem from Collins' anthology. Another student in FastTrack turned me on to the book over the summer and it is excellent.
The students seemed to enjoy the lesson. We had a very lengthy and interesting discussion in 4 out of the 5 classes I taught that day. I taught it to 2 freshman classes and 3 sophmore classes. Both Freshman classes enjoyed it; 2 of the 3 sophmore classes enjoyed it. The class that did not respond just seemed uninterested in learning anything. The 4 that did respond enjoyed getting their negative feelings of poetry off their chest and liked how Collins writes his poetry in 'easy' language. They also liked how he does not espouse digging deep into a poem for a 'correct' reading.
Jayson -- How are you going to address the group that was "uninterested in learning anything"? I'm finding that many planning resources out there (articles/books/lessons) presuppose a certain level of engagement with school on the part of the students. For example, Nancie Atwell's introduction to writing workshop (list of writing territories) was a bit of a bomb in our low-track 8th grade class where the kids do not yet have an appreciation for the usefulness of writing in the first place, or much faith in the potential of their own voices. Do you have any ideas for how you are going to back up and get your disaffected class into poetry and/or learning about metaphor?
I'm really interested in everyone's ideas on how to make ELA feel relevant to the struggling/uninterested students.
Thanks,
Lydia
I really like having students work with their favorite songs when studying poetry. It's an activity that is always well-received by all age ranges. Thanks for posting, Jayson!
To Lydia - I don't know. I haven't had an opportunity to teach the class that did not respond again. I was covering for my cooperating teacher. I am not sure how to address it though. Any lesson assumes some class participation, but the truth is, if a class conspires against the teacher's lesson, there isn't much you can do. Should I just lecture and lecture to show how boring the opposite is? or come down a level further to make it more fun?
To Emily - yes, teaching the lesson 5 times gave me instant opportunity to tweak it and figure out what went well or wrong
to Hannah - yes the connection between songs and poetry was fun and interesting for the students to explore
to Shannon - the responses were varied and worked well with the lesson. They were either very negative 'poetry is boring' type stuff, which enabled me to speak about how not all poets like people to delve deeply into their work or desire a search for the 'right' answer (like Collins). Or, the spoke about their love of modern poetry which was a great springboard into Collins
Post a Comment
<< Home