HUM 8 Unit Plan
Unit
Title:
Name:
Poetry Unit
Nicole Duy, for Jennifer Braun
Number of
Lessons:
Subject:
14 x 70 min.
each
English 8,
Blocks A & E
Number of
Weeks
3
Stage 1 – Desired Results
Unit Title:

A study of poetry
PLOs:
 Oral Language: A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A7,
A8, A10
 Reading and Viewing: B1, B2, B3, B4,
B5, B6, B7, B10, B11
 Writing and Representing: C1, C3, C4,
C5, C7
Essential Questions:
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What is poetry? What is a poem?
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What strategies can we use to understand poetry?
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What are some poetic forms and structures and how do they affect
meaning(s)?
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How does performance affect the meaning(s) of the written word in a
poem?
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How do poets express themes through their work?
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How can students express themselves through poetry?
Student objectives (outcomes):
Students will be able to:
 Appreciate, discuss, and interpret a variety of poems
 Identify theme, poetic structures, and devices (including figurative language) and how they contribute to a poem’s
meaning(s)
 Create original poems using various forms, devices, and constraints
Big Ideas:
 Poetry can be interpreted in many different ways
 Poets make deliberate choices about style, tone, structure, and word choice
 Poets use words (figurative language, voice, tone), structure (line breaks, punctuation, poetic form), and ideas (theme,
speakers, narrative) to create meaning
 Poetry can take many forms
Evaluation:

Poetic Terms Quiz
5%
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Poem Presentation
15%
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Original Poetry
25%
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Paragraph Responses (2) 15%
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Unit Test
30%
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ROARS Mark
10%
Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
Other Evidence:

Entrance/Exit slips, Reader Response Groups, Poet’s Café (optional)
Stage 3: Unit Overview
Lesson
Number
1
Monday
February
2nd
Topic
Introduction:
Poetry is
Pervasive
Objectives & Strategies
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Icebreaker?
Unit introduction
What is a poem?
Get students thinking
about
experiences/beliefs/
expectations about
poetry
Introduce strategies for
Poems
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“Eating Poetry” by
Mark Strand
“Introduction to
Poetry” by Billy
Collins
Quotations by Eliot
and cummings
Lesson Activity
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Prior knowledge: one word that comes to
mind about poetry; share with group then
with class
Poetry anticipation exercise
Choose a poem from among anthologies;
copy poem for classroom display
Introduce symbols for reading:
* this word or line is cool
! this is something important
reading poetry: read
the poem three times;
annotation
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2
Tuesday
February
3rd
Ideas
Poems Have
Meaning(s):
Theme
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How do we make
meaning(s) from a
poem?/How do we read
poetry
Equip students with
strategies to help them
derive meaning(s) from
a text
To read, re-read,
question and think
about poems for
analysis
To challenge students
to think critically about
the poems
Introduce structure,
language, rhyme/free
verse
How do we write
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“Hanging Fire” by
Audre Lorde?
Richard Cory?
Poe’s “Eldorado” for
different
interpretations?
“Theory,” Dorothy
Parker
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? I don’t get it/I don’t understand
Sign-up for poetry/song presentation
Exit slip: answer “What is poetry”; I will
hold on to these exit slips and return to them
throughout the unit
Grammar
Ish Snowball activity (from Peter Hill):
students write a free verse poem for portfolio
Model Reader Response approach with
Lorde’s poem (from Anthony Pare)
Model my Selected Poem/Song, provide
students with rubric
Grammar
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3
Wednesd
ay
February
4th
Ideas
Poems Tell A
Story: Ballads
& Narratives
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4
February
5th
Structure
Poems Have A
Look: Text,
Spacing, and
Concrete
Poems
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poetry?
Create a poem based
on the “Ish” activity
Examine the role of
ballads, performance,
and oral tradition in
poetry
Identify and
understand the
elements of historic
and literary ballads
Understand how a
dramatic reading can
impact tone and
meaning(s)
Create a poem based
on an interpretation of
a contemporary event
Introduce “Poet’s Café”
Consider the use of line
breaks and white space
in the creation of a
poem’s meaning(s)
Identify and
understand the
features of form
poems: concrete
poem, epigram, epitaph
Adapt a published
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“Barbara Allan” OR
“Jesse James” OR
“Wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald”
Annabel Lee?
Slam Poetry—B
Yung and Sonya Li
? Highwayman
? Robert Service
? Dylan/Seeger/
“Disembarking at
Quebec?”—too much
Peggy already?
Bowie Space Oddity
? something more
modern
From anthology; still
to be sourced
Wayne Keon for
concrete poems
“Ice Cream”
(L)eaf by ee
cummings
“Untitled (2)” by
Fred Wah
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Two students present their songs/poems
Students divided into groups and responsible
for presenting a dramatic reading of
stanzas/Reader’s Theatre
Newspaper headline poem. From Peter Hill
(homework?)—this assignment probably
needs more constraints to be effective this
early on; poem can be included in portfolio
Three students present their songs/ poems
Brainstorm: things they’ve noticed about
poems they have been reading—draw
attention to line space/breaks
Reader Response Groups with Wah poem
Rewrite the poem they chose from the 1st
class, changing line breaks and spacing,
adding single word for impact
Include this rewritten poem in poetry
portfolio
poem by changing
spaces and line breaks
5
Friday
February
6th
6
Tuesday
February
10th
Structure
Poems Have A
Look: Form
Poetry
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Words
Poets Play
With Words
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Identify and
understand features of
form poems: Haiku,
Cinquain, Limericks
Create a form poem
To understand and
appreciate how poets
manipulate words and
language
To understand how
word choice helps
create meaning(s)
Create a poem focusing
on sensory description
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7
Wednesd
ay
February
11th
Words
Poets Choose
Words
Carefully:
Figurative
Language-Images
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Identify features of
figurative language:
simile, metaphor,
allusion, extended
metaphor,
personification
Understand how poets
use figurative language
to convey meaning(s)
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From anthology &
additional sources
Layton, “Wit”
Something that
accomplishes the
same thing as “We
Real Cool”
“Red Wheel Barrow”
“This is Just to Say”
and Williams’s wife’s
response
Pound, “In a Station
of the Metro”
“Fourteenth
Birthday”, by Phyllis
McGinley (extended
metaphor)
“Cyclops” by Atwood
(allusion/metaphor/
personification)
assortment of
poems for groups to
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Three students present their songs/ poems
Model writing form poems
Students write two least one form poems
from the following forms: limerick, haiku,
cinquain, epigram, epitaph, concrete poem.
Poems included in portfolio
Review and add to “What is Poetry” exit slip
Three students present their songs/poems
Popcorn Poetry?
Reader response groups for imagist poems?
Two students present their songs/poems
Jigsaw for examples of terms?
Reader Response for 14th? And/or Cyclops?
Free write in response to diary object for
“Fourteenth Birthday”; poem can be included
in portfolio
8
Thursday
February
12th
Words
Poets Choose
Words
Carefully:
Figurative
Language II-Sounds
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9 Friday
February
13th
Words
Poets Chose
Words
Carefully:
Tone/ Mood
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Ideas
Voice
10
Monday
February
16th
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Identify features of
figurative language:
onomatopoeia,
consonance,
assonance, alliteration
Understand how poets
use sound to convey
meaning(s)
Create a poem using
elements of figurative
language
Examine how tone,
mood and meaning are
conveyed through
poet’s word choice
Diction, rhyme scheme,
images
Provide students with
tools for editing poetry
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Understand and
appreciate the role of
voice in creating
meaning(s)
Understand and
appreciate the role of
voice in evoking
emotional reaction in
readers
Students change the
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use to locate literary
devices
Anne Sexton,
“Young”
Frost “Acquainted
with the night”?
cummings “in Justspring”
Roethke “Root
Cellar”
“Fog,” by Carl
Sandburg
Other material
“Bury My Heart at
Wounded Knee,” by
Buffy Saint Marie
Langston Hughes or
Claude McKay
Other material
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Two students present their songs/poems
Paint-chip poetry using figurative language
‘Gallery walk’ to view paint chip poetry
Poetry can be edited to be included in
portfolio
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Two students present their songs/poems
Brainstorm list of words that create strong
feelings
Workshop on editing poems already created
Quiz
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Three students present their songs/poems
Register shift exercise, from Kedrick James
Deadline to submit material for chapbook
11
February
17th
Form
Sonnet (or
more general
lyric poetry ie
poetry soup?)
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12
February
18th
Found Poems
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13
February
19th
Poetry and
Community
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register and voice in a
piece of writing or
poetry
Recognise how form
and structure affect
meaning
Introduce the sonnet
and understand its
form and structure
Students create a poem
with word constraints
Recognise that the way
a poem is written will
affect how it is read
Students create a
found poem
How to edit poetry
Recognise that the
creation and
dissemination of poetry
can be a communal &
transformative act
Collaboratively create a
poem and then
independently edit the
result (for Renga) OR
Use poetry to materially
transform the school
(Guerilla poetry)
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Shakespeare,
Sonnet 130
Wyatt, Whoso List to
Hunt OR Sidney 1 or
31
Millay, Sonnet 29 OR
What My Lips Have
Kissed
Warren Commission
Report
Source other
material
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Two students present their songs/poems
Reader Response groups?
Seven letter poem, from Carl Leggo
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Three students present their songs/poems
Quick Write/Brainstorm how poets create
meaning
Create a found poem
Return “What is Poetry” slip from first class
and ask students to add anything else they
deem relevant
Extra-time to catch-up,
How to edit poetry
Two students present their songs/poems
Review/over-view for test
Guerilla Poetry: students select lines from a
poem (their own or another’s) and copy and
hide these lines in the classroom; students
then artistically copy these lines on the
sidewalk around the school
this class is weather dependent, so may be
moved earlier by a day or so
OR Classwide Renga—poem is created
collaboratively and then edited by original
author for inclusion into portfolio (from
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Kedrick James)
14
February
20th
Unit Test
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Unit Test
Poet’s Café during lunch
Musings
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Grammar lessons on alternate days
I am not sure whether to do the paragraph responses (3 at 5% each) as responses to individual poems we look at in class or
to integrate them into the poetry portfolio—ie have them choose three new poems and write responses to them.
I have the found poem class towards the end and I am not that keen on the placement. If I put this topic earlier, however,
the literary devices section runs late, placing the quiz too close to the test.
I am not sure whether or not to do a lesson on the sonnet or just have a class dedicated to an assortment of poems. My
thinking is that with the sonnet class I can anticipate some of the chivalric ideals they will encounter in the feudalism and
renaissance units, so that would be a nice tie in.
Additional Poets/Poems to Consider
 Caedmon’s Hymn for connection to Anglo Saxon/feudalism unit
 Instead of Millay, Browning How Do I Love Thee?” (sonnet)
 Dickinson—I’m Nobody (288)
 Scott, “Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon”
 Robert Frost
 ? Wallace Stevens
 EJ Pratt “The Shark” (sound)
 Early Birney “Vancouver Lights” or “Anglo Saxon Street” for sound and textual space (but hard!)—possibly another Birney?
 Leonard Cohen?