Day 2: “Jabberwocky” and English Sonnets
Objectives:
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Know – Students will know what a choral reading is and will be able to perform one.
Know – Students will know that many poems have different rhyme schemes, often resulting in
patterns.
Know – Students will know that English sonnets have 14 lines, consisting of quatrains and a
couplet.
Understand – Students will understand how to identify the rhyme scheme of a particular poem,
if it has one.
Understand – Students will understand that rhyme schemes may have deviations within them.
Do – Students will be able to practice following a rhyme scheme and writing their own poem.
Standards:
CE 1.1.1, CE 1.1.2, CE 1.1.3, CE 1.1.4, CE 1.2.3, CE 1.3.1, CE 1.3.9, CE 1.5.1, CE 2.1.11, CE 3.1.1, CE 3.2.1,
CE 3.2.2, CE 3.2.4, CE 4.1.2
Materials:
Chalkboard, whiteboard, or overhead projector to write on
Writing utensil(s)
Paper
Different colored pens, crayons, colored pencils, markers, or highlighters
“Jabberwocky” poem
Information on sonnet forms
Shakespeare’s “Sonnet XIX” [When in disgrace with fortunes and men’s eyes…]
Lesson Plan:
Hand out copies of the poem that students composed together in class yesterday. Instruct students that
they are going to do a choral reading, which means each student will read the line he/she wrote out
loud when it gets to his/her part (5 minutes).
Read the poem “Jabberwocky” to the students. Discuss poem with students (10-15 minutes).
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What do you think of the poem?
What happens in the poem? How do you know? What lines help you know?
What is a “Jabberwock”? What is “Jabberwocky”?
With the students, mark the rhyme scheme of the first stanza of the poem (abab) with them. (Provide
different colored pens, crayons, colored pencils, markers, or highlighters so that students can color code
the rhyme scheme, if this method works better for them). Ask students to finish marking the rhyme
scheme and to watch out for any deviations from the rhyme scheme. After students are finished, ask
what they marked and why and discuss where deviations occurred in the poem (i.e. stanzas 3, 5, & 6,
the 1st and 3rd lines of each stanza) (5-10 minutes).
Read Shakespeare’s “Sonnet XIX” [“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”] and discuss
together. Go line by line, if necessary (15-20 minutes).
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What’s this poem about? Can anyone summarize it?
What is the author saying? Who’s he addressing? What’s his situation? How’s he feel?
What are “bootless cries”?
What does “that man’s scope” mean?
Is there any sort of rhyme scheme in the poem?
Have students mark the rhyme scheme of the poem. (Provide different colored pens, crayons, colored
pencils, markers, or highlighters as an option as well) (5-10 minutes).
Use remainder of class to work on sonnets.
Assessment Method:
Listen to students’ observations about “Jabberwocky” and “Sonnet XIX.” Do they understand the poem
and are able to summarize it?
Walk around as students mark the rhyme scheme of the poem (i.e. abab or with different colors) and
begin writing their own sonnet.
Homework:
Read Milton’s Milton’s [“When I consider how my light is spent”] and Spenser’s “Sonnet LXXV” [“One
day I wrote her name upon the strand”].
Resources:
http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm
Attachments:
Taken from http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/jabber/jabberwocky.html
“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Taken from http://www.sonnets.org/shakespeare.htm#029
“Sonnet XIX” by William Shakespeare
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.