UNDERSTANDING
THE BASICS OF POETRY is a unit that can be altered to suit the teacher's
particular preferences. You can spend 5 days or 5 weeks teaching poetry
to your students. The following are some helpful hints:
- The PowerPoint presentation at the beginning of the unit will introduce
students to important terms that they should continue to refer to as
they write their explications after each poem. You may want to quiz
them on these terms because they should be very familiar with them.
- The handouts for each type of poem will allow you to break down
ideas and make it easier for the student to understand. You may choose
other poems that fall under the categories if you choose. These handouts
should be used as a basis for each lesson.
- Samples of completed worksheets are subjective, so you may choose
to alter certain answers.
- The final project can also be altered. I have students hand in
the poem ahead of time so I can compile an anthology that every student
can keep. This way, each student has a book of poems of which they have
heard detailed explanations.
- Explications of poems are available on the web if you do a Google
search. It is important to understand that people have different viewpoints
of poems. I encourage you to seek out alternative explanations.
- Think.com is an amazing
tool that can be set up very easily. If you sign up as an administrator,
it allows you to assign your students screen names and passwords. This
site is free and can be used for various activities. Please Explore!!!
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