Paula McKibben

EDU 530 Pleasure of Words

Dr. Jeff Gundy

March 24, 2001

How to Improve the Teaching of English Poetry to Seniors in High School

I am struggling this year with the teaching of English 12, a survey of British Literature. English 9 and English 10, which I have taught previously, are both general classes including literature from several sources. My last bout with any British literature would have been 30 years ago at BGSU in Chaucer and Shakespeare classes. As a result, I am just barely one step ahead of my students and always grasping for ways to make the literature more appealing, and more enduring, for them. Attending your class has helped me to develop three lessons that I think will help to accomplish these goals for me.

Lesson Plan 1: Introduction to Restoration and 18th Century Poetry

Introduction and Motivation:

This particular lesson will serve as the introduction and motivation for my unit on pre-Romantic poetry during the Restoration and the 18th Century, 1660-1798. Poems in this unit include “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” by Dryden; “An Essay on Man,” Pope; “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Gray; “Woman,” Goldsmith; “To a Mouse,” Burns; “To a Louse,” Burns; “Afton Water,” Burns; “John Anderson, My Jo,” Burns; “The Lamb,” Blake; “The Tiger,” Blake; “A Poison Tree,” Blake; “The Human Abstract,” Blake; and “Infant Sorrow,” Blake.

Materials:

Prentice Hall Literature: The English Tradition. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Gundy, Jeff. "Don't Borrow, Steal!" Handout EDU 530 Pleasure of Words. 2001.

One-sided copies of the poems from the chapter "Restoration and Eighteenth Century 1660-1798" from the text, slightly enlarged, so that students can cut out words and phrases.

Scissors, glue sticks.

Objective:

Students will develop a desire to study the poems of this era as witnessed by comments such as “I didn’t know that this comment came from here,” or “Isn’t this just like saying . . . .”

Steps in Lesson:

1. Distribute the copies of the poems to each student, along with scissors and glue sticks.

2. Tell the students that they will have just one minute to look at each poem in the stack of 13 to find an example of language or imagery that really strikes them. They are to mark the passage. At my count, they must turn to the next poem.

3. At the end of this session, students must then go back, cut out the passages, and make their own poems using these fragments. Lines of their own may be added to create more sense.

4. Share these poems.

Assessment:

Each student will have a poem to share with the rest of the class. Hopefully, students will realize that some lines they have heard before. If not, they will have at least worked with them, hands on, perhaps creating a memory link now.

Lesson 2: Understanding 17th Century Poetry

Introduction and Motivation:

My students really struggled with the poetry of Ben Jonson, John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Robert Herrick, Sir John Suckling, Richard Lovelace, John Milton, and John Bunyan. To help them with these poets, I will introduce the authors and discuss their backgrounds. Then I will explain that they will be imitating these poets using their own words, not paraphrases, but imitations--actually creating a new version for today's day and age using their own idioms.

Materials:

Prentice Hall Literature: The English Tradition. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Gundy, Jeff. "Imitation/Transformation (with thanks to Dana Gioia)." Handout EDU 530 Pleasure of Words. 2001.

Objective:

Students will understand the literature of the 17th century poets by studying it, so that they will be able to write a similar version using words from their vernacular.

Steps in Lesson:

1. Previous to this class students will have read the following poems aloud and discussed their meanings: "To the Memory of My Beloved Master," "On My First Son," "Song: To Celia," "Still to be Neat," by Jonson; "Song," "Holy Sonnet 10," "Holy Sonnet 14," Donne; "Virtue," "Easter Wings," "Man," Herbert; "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell; "An Ode for Him," To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," Herrick; "The Constant Lover," "Song," Suckling; and "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars," "ToAlthea, from Prison," Lovelace.

2. Explain that students are to select two poems from the list to write their own version.

3. Pass out examples from Gundy's handout made from Horace's "Seize the Day." (See appendix.) Include my own version, given here: "Forget it, Faye. It is not ours to know what will happen. We can only do our best, and let it go at that. Worry never fixes anything: it just wears us out. Sit back, relax, carry on with your life. Time doesn't stop. Do what you can now and hope for the best."

4. Students will write their own versions.

5. Share the examples with the rest of the class in a Poetry Slam setting. Bring in a panel of judges from outside of the class to pick the best.

Assessment:

Each student will create two versions of two poems. Each student will share one version orally with the class in a Poetry Slam.

Appendix:

"Horace Odes I" (Prose translation)

Do not ask, Leuconoe--to know is not permitted--what end the gods have given to you and me, do not consult Babylonian horoscopes. It will be better to endure whatever comes, whether Jupiter grants us more winters or whether this is the last one, which now against the opposite cliffs wears out the Tuscan sea. Be wise, decant the wine, and since our space is brief, cut back your far-reaching hope. Even while we talk, envious time has fled away: seize the day, put little trust in what is to come.

Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Horace to Leuconoe"

I pray you not, Leuconoe, to pore

With unpermitted eyes on what may be

Appoiunted by the gods for you and me,

Nor on Chaldean figures anymore.

'T were infinitely better to implore the presnet only:--whether Jove decree

More winteres yet to come, or whether he

Make even this, whose hard, wave-eaten shore

Shatters the Tuscan seas to-day, the last--

Be wise withal, and rack your wine, nor fill

Your bosom with large hopes; for while I sing,

The envious close of time is narrowing;--

So seize the day, or ever it be past,

And let the morrow come for what it will.

John Frederick Nims, "Horace Coping"

Don't ask--knowing's taboo--what's in the cards,

darling, for you, for me,

what end heaven intends. Meddle with palm, planet,

seance, tealeaves?

--rubbish! Shun the occult. Better by far take in

your stride what comes.

Long life?--possible. Or--? Maybe the gods mean it

your last, this grim

winter shaking the shore, booming the surf, wearying

wave and rock.

Well then! Learn to be wise; out with the wine.

Knowing the time so short,

no grand hopes, do you hear? Now, as we talk,

huffishly time goes by.

So take hold of the day. Hugging it close. Nothing

beyond is yours.

Jeff Gundy, "Late Ode (after Horace)"

Oh let it go, honey. We won't know

what Jesus has marked out for us until

the gimpy end of time, anyway.

Put the damn self-help books away.

Maybe we'll totter off into the dark

like old Kermit and Velma across the street,

me putting on your shoes, you mine.

Maybe we won't last out this winter

as the wind yanks at the old chimney

and sand from the mortar sprinkles the snow.

We won't be young tomorrow, but odds are

we won't be dead wither. We'll live

if the laundry sits till Monday. I'll go

to Kibbee's for a bottle, you put

the kids to bed. You can pour. We'll drink,

and talk, and grab whatever we can reach.

Lesson 3: John Keats

Introduction and Motivation:

John Keats' poetry always seemed distant to me in high school, especially "Ode on a Grecian Urn." I can't say that I am any more enamored of his style now than I was then, but maybe I can make it more understandable for my students. His odes in our book deal with his own observations. So before beginning Keats, I will have the students observe something and write about it in verse form.

Materials:

Prentice Hall Literature: The English Tradition. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Gundy, Jeff. "Pay Attention!" Handout EDU 530 Pleasure of Words. 2001.

Objective:

Students will imitate John Keats by studying an object and writing about it in verse.

Steps in Lesson:

1. Indicate that today they are going to have a John Keats experience.

2. Read aloud p. 731 in text. This indicates how he wrote "Ode to a Nightingale."

Keats composed the following ode in 1819, while living in Hampstead with his friend Charles Brown. Brown wrote the following description about how the ode was composed: "In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continued joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast table to the grass plot under the plum tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps , four or five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song of our nightingale." (Prentice Hall 731)

3. Tell students they are to choose a natural object (a leaf, a stick, a rock) or a place outside. They are to spend at least 30 minutes observing and writing about this object. They should begin with a careful description, using as many senses as possible, and then progress to fantasies or associations that occur to them. It is not necessary to stick to the subject after the initial description (Gundy).

4. Send the students outside if the weather is cooperative or to a window or hallway for half an hour.

5. As the students arrive back, have them revise their poems for the next day.

6. Share poems.

7. Read Keats' poems.

Assessment:

Students will read aloud their own poems and will then discuss what might have influenced John Keats to write some of his poems.

Poems that I wrote in class on March 16 and 17, 2001:

(I have included a version poem in Lesson 2)

Chosen to Be

Pittsburgh--

The new home on the range.

She has chosen to leave her mother,

She has chosen to be another.

Does she know what may happen?

Will she care if we leave the lights on at home?

Human Mind

Some say study weakens the body;

Others that being lazy makes you strange.

But what really happens in the murky world of the subconscious?

Do we solve problems in our dreams?

Why are we always amazed at the movement of time?

The milk of knowledge is freely poured--

But still is heard the cry, "I think they ought to hang every one of them."