Lesson 66: Similes, Metaphors, and Personification and
William Cullen Bryant
Name: _Amanda Ross______________ Date: ___2/12/2013__Age/Grade Level: __11___
# of Students: _21__ # of IEP Students: _3__ # of GSSP Students: ____ # of LEP Students:___
Subject: ___English_______ Major Content: __English I ____________ Lesson Length: _53 min.____
Unit Title: _Poetry
______ Lesson Number and Title: __Poetry____
Context:
 Students have completed a research project.
 Students speak a dialect of English that is different from the standardized.
Objectives:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Students will be able to personally connect to the text. (How do you relate to this text? Where are you, as the reader,
located in the text?)
Students will be able to define allusion. (What is allusion?) Allusion: The act of alluding; indirect reference:
Without naming names, the candidate criticized the national leaders by allusion.
Students will be able to identify theme and tone in selected poems. (What is the theme? What is the tone?)
Students will be able to identify the use of imagery in selected poems. (What imagery is present in the poem? What
descriptive words and phrases are used? How do these words and phrases create a mental image?)
Students will be able to define assonance. (What is assonance?) Assonance: The repetition of identical or
similar vowel sounds, especially in stressed syllables, with changes in the intervening consonants, as in the phrase
tilting at windmills; Rough similarity; approximate agreement.
Connections:
11-12.RL.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly
as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves
matters uncertain.
11-12.RL.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over
the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a
complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
11-12.RL.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative
and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone,
including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or
beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
11-12.RL.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the
choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution)
contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
11-12.RL.6 Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in
a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
11-12.SL.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in
groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues,
building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
11-12.SL.1
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in
groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues,
building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
11-12.SL.2
Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g.,
visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems,
evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the
Ross
Sherman Jr./Sr. High School
2012-2013 School Year
1
data.
11-12.SL.5
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive
elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and
to add interest.
11-12.SL.6
Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English
when indicated or appropriate. (See grades 11–12 Language standards 1 and 3 for specific
expectations.)
11-12.W.4
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are
appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
11-12.W.6
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared
writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
Assessment Plan:
Objective/Assessment Plan Organizer
Objective Number
Type of
Assessment
Description of
Assessment
Depth of
Knowledge Level
Adaptations
and/or
Accommodations
1
Formative
Written/verbal
response
3/4
Peer tutor/
collaborative teacher
2
Formative
Written/verbal
response
3/4
Peer tutor/
collaborative teacher
3
Formative
Written/verbal
response
3/4
Peer tutor/
collaborative teacher
Resources, media, and technology:
1.
2.
3.
Power point presentation.
Textbooks.
Handouts.
Procedure
Time
Description
1
5-10
minutes
First I will start students with their daily bell ringer.
2
10-15
minutes
I will ask students to read Prologue by Edward Field. I will have them read it once to
themselves silently. Then I will ask them, “What is the key to poetry?” Students should be
able to respond that poetry is a heard language, so I will ask for a student volunteer to read
the poem aloud.
Once the poem has been read aloud, I will ask students to use a sheet of paper and their new
definitions to find the similes, metaphors, and personification used in the poem.
Next, I will ask students why they think the author used these three elements to talk about
the universe. I will ask them the following questions:
1.
2.
3.
Ross
Sherman Jr./Sr. High School
2012-2013 School Year
Why did the author use similes, metaphors, and personification to talk about the
universe?
What affect do these elements have on the theme of the poem?
How does this poem, which talks about the universe, different from a normal
textbook that might talk about the same thing? Which do you prefer?
2
Prologue by Edward Field
Look, friend, at this universe
With its spiral clusters of stars
Flying out all over space
Like bedsprings suddenly busting free;
And in this galaxy, the sun
Fissioning itself away,
Surrounded by planets, prominent in their dignity,
And bits and pieces running wild;
And this middling planet
With a lone moon circling round it.
Look, friend, through the fog of gases at this world
With its skin of earth and rock, water and ice,
With various creatures and rooted things;
And up from the bulging waistline
To this land of concrete towers,
Its roads swarming like a hive cut open,
Offshore to this island, long and fish shaped,
Its mouth to a metropolis,
And in its belly, this village,
A gathering of families at a crossways,
And in this house, upstairs and through the wide-open door
Of the front bedroom with a window on the world,
Look, friend, at me.
3
25-27
minutes
Next, students will grab their textbooks and turn to page 294. Students will read the
background information on Christopher Marlowe and the read “The Passionate Shepherd to
His Love”.
Then, students will read William Cullen Bryant’s background information and poem
“Thanatopsis” pp 189-192.
Then, I will ask students to answer the following questions:
1.
2.
3.
As the poem opens, Nature is personified as someone who speaks “a various
language.” How does Nature speak to us in our “gayer hours”? How does Nature
respond to our “darker musings”?
Lines 17-30 have a sad, tragic tone. Describe the shift in tone that occurs in line 31.
What metaphors and images in this section of the poem reinforce the change in
tone?
4) do you find this speaker’s attitude toward death comforting or disturbing, or do
you have some other reaction? Explain.
These questions will be do at the end of the class period.
Ross
Sherman Jr./Sr. High School
2012-2013 School Year
3