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
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