English 11
Escher 2015-16
Poetry: Lesson 1
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Students will be expected to comprehend and respond, paraphrase main ideas and themes, interpret
ideas, make connections with their own beliefs/cultures/values, support responses with specific
details and information that they’ve read, evaluate conventions of language used in poems, and
create a final project that demonstrates clear understanding of the unit.
1.
Poetic Devices Handout: This handout will be somewhat edited as the unit progresses. This
package will be very useful to you for our lessons, homework, and the final project.
2. Listen to the song (and read along from your lyric sheet) “Poets” by Tragically Hip. What do you
think this song is about?
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3. Poetry is everywhere. Poetry is song, monologue, slam words, rap, and much more. A found
poem is a poem that is created with words found in another text. It is not plagiarism, because
you are not copying someone else’s idea or answer; you are using their text as a word bank to
build your own creation. Look at Joy Kogawa’s poem “found poem”. She wrote this poem from
words found elsewhere, decided on a mood or theme, and went to work to create her own
poem. It is considered one of her best pieces of work. Assignment: Create a found poem from
the lyrics of “Poets” by Tragically Hip. As usual, use PEN, title your work, be neat and
organized, and check your spelling (this will not continue to be corrected for you at this point
in the year).
4. Hand out “How to Read a Poem”. This has been borrowed from another site, but I’ve left the
poetic terms along the right-hand side because they are the most prevalent terms in grades 10
and 11. This handout will be useful to you, especially since your final exam for English 11 and
your government exam in grade 12 will have poetry sections.