Poetry Unit Syllabus
**On each day that a poem is due, you must be prepared to answer any of the questions at the end of each poem.
Before discussion begins, each student will take a short quiz over the poems assigned on that day.
During class discussion, failure to answer a question orally will mean a zero for participation for that day. You may write
out that answers to the poem questions ahead of time. Be prepared to defend your answer which will result in added
bonus to your participation grade. Your name will be pulled from the list of students’ names. Be prepared each day.
**Be able to paraphrase what happens in each poem.
**Be prepared to provide a theme to the poem. An answer of “I don’t know” is unacceptable.
**You should be familiar with every word of every poem. If you do not know the meaning of a word, look it up and put it
in your notes for that poem.
**Participation in class discussion will be taken as a grade each day. (In most cases, this grade is very beneficial.)
TP-CASTT over each poem
assigned on the day that you were absent. (See handout.)
**If you are absent on a day that poems are discussed, you must do a
Pre- Unit- Read page 665- How to read a poem
Read and paraphrase the poem “Show Me The Way” (Styx)
Day 1- Two poems Q-D- The Ball Turrett Gunner (674), The Man He Killed (673), (After discussion, talk about the
paraphrase (680-681) and explication (pages 684-685) of “The Man He Killed” as well.
Day 2 - Q-D- “Richard Cory” 713, “explanation of Cory- pg 719,
Day 3- Poetry Unit Vocabulary Test
Day 4- Q-D “Loving” (745) “Metaphors” 812
Day 5- “I Wanted to Share My Father’s World” 839//”My Childhood’s Home 849//
Day 6- My Physics Teacher 859, Mantle 945, George Washington 895
Day 7- Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night , No Coward Soul is Mine 975
Day 8- Waiting for Icarus 1025, Odyssey- 20 years later 1020,
Day 9 - “The Shape of History”
Day 10- Sonnet from Shakespeare
Day 11- In class explication- Do Not Weep, Maiden, for War is Kind (WHITE THIS OUT BEFORE COPYING)
Day 12- In class AP Test which has information from poetry
Day 13- Poetry Vocabulary Re-Test
Day 14- Theme test over all poems.
Day 15-16 – Begin research about a poet. What effect did this poet and his poems have on the world around him.
(Assign by picking a poet’s name out of a hat.) Each student will put together an annotated bibliography with five
sources about the poet.)
Day 17-18- Write TP-CASTT analyses about four of the poet’s poems.
Day 19-20- Compare and contrast two of these four poems- 500 words minimum. You will need to compare and
contrast the themes and the literary devices in these poems. If applicable, include information about the poet that
would pertain to the meaning of the poem: his style, literary influence, major themes, etc….
Days 21-22-23- Poetry Presentations- 5 minute presentations- explain one of the poems for the students and include
information about the author.
POETRY UNIT RESEARCH PROJECT- Each of the poets that follow have four or more poems in
the literature text. **Choose a poet- one per class
William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Billy Collins, e.e. cummings, Emily
Dickinson (2), John Donne, Robert Frost (2), Thomas Hardy, George Herbert, John
Hollander, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Langston Hughes, John Keats, Lisel Mueller,
Marge Piercy, Theodore Roethke, William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, William
Wordsworth, William Butler Yeats
POETRY PRESENTATIONS
**Each student will teach one of the four poems to the class along with presenting
information about the author.
HINTS
**Plagiarism will result in failure. Do not just copy information from sources.”
**Limit your direct quotes. Instead, paraphrase what the source said and then
analyze what that source said with your own interpretation. You may use
information from individual poems to support your opinion or the opinion of a
source. For example, a source might say your poet had anti-government ideas. You
then find a poem that has “anti-government” opinions and then you indicate why
these lines support the source’s opinion.