Aim: Introduction to The Sonnet

Objective: Students will be able to understand the structure of the sonnet and write about its tone and theme.

Procedure:

1. Hand out introduction to sonnet worksheet.
2. As a class, read about the history of the sonnet.
3. Ask two students to read the poem (18). The purpose of this is to hear the poem from more than one perspective.
4. As a class, go through the questions and share each answer. Allow students to express many different ideas. See sample completed worksheet.
5. For HW, have students write two paragraphs reflecting the tone and theme of the poem
6. As a suplement to this lesson, follow the same format with the poem Bright Star, by John Keats. See sample completed worksheet.
7. After students write their explication of the poem, using tone and theme as a basis, you may wish to show them an example of a proper explication. Bright Star Explication
8. Note to Teacher: Students should understand that the sonnet's format of hypothesis, thesis and conclusion is important because poets choose this format when writing about ideas they wish to contemplate and resolve.