The English I Poetry Unit focuses on imagery, figurative language – specifically metaphors and similes, allusions, tone, and parallelism. According to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, the unit goals and objectives Goal 5. For the texts, I use poetry from the various cultures around the world that make up the diversity of my student population. One day is specifically for classic US Poetry, one day is for Latino Poetry, one for Asian poetry, and one from Africa to African-American Poetry. I strive to include art and music from those cultures as well.
| Day One
Introductory Presentation on the Poetry Unit: poetry_presentation_spring_2011 Literary Devices for Poetry Unit Poetry Unit Project: |
Day Two
I often find that one of the biggest problems my students have in understanding tone is the lack of vocabulary. Here is a fun way for students to expand their emotional vocabulary. |
| Day Three
Practicing finding tone, here is an adaptation from a Poetry Out Loud lesson. |
Day Four
Two handy graphic organizers for analyzing a poem and a poem to practice with. I do this with the whole class the first time and then allow students to complete the analysis on their own: |
| Day Five
Understanding imagery and figurative language. Using imagery and figurative language in a lesson. |
Day Six
Classic American Poetry: In groups of 4-5 students will be assigned one of the poems and will complete a TPCASTT on the poem. The groups will present their findings to the class. Alternatively, you can be creative with analytical posters. |
| Day Seven and Eight:
Dramatics in Poetry Again, students will work in groups of 4-5 to pull out the meaning of different African-American poems and then present their understanding of the poem in the form of a skit. |
Day Nine:
I chose some Latino poems because several of my students are ESL students. I want them to have exposure to their culture as well. Whole poem analysis. |
| Day Ten:
Symbolism in Poetry: Mini-Assessment on Symbolism in poetry: |
Day Eleven:
Irony in Poetry |
| Day Twelve:
Poetry Cafe – using music to understand poetry |
Other Resources for Poetry: |
Too often, it is difficult to tell the difference between tone and mood. This is one visual that really helped my students and me to understand the difference.
Tone and Mood Diagram is a broken link for me.
I see the bottom link was broken – thank you. I fixed it. It is the same handout as in the other resources section on this page.