POETRY UNIT 2015-2016
Freshman Honors English
You will complete the following tasks as part of this unit and gain a greater appreciation of
American poetry in the process.
1. You will complete a research paper which will include the following steps:
● Conduct research on your assigned poet to become more familiar with his/her life
and style of poetry.
● Print research materials to be included in your paper. Key points will be
highlighted and written in your own words or quoted directly.
● Create an outline for your research paper.
● Create a rough draft for your paper that will be revised and edited.
● Produce a final paper that includes a cover page, 3-4 typed pages, and a Works
Cited page using Modern Language Association (MLA) format.
2. You will present your assigned poet with your partner to the class.
● Create a Google Slides or Prezi presentation
● Each presenter will select a poem by his/her assigned poet to analyze and read
aloud – these will be different poems. A typed poem analysis will also be
submitted at this time.
3. You will memorize a poem to recite to me. You may choose one of the four poems on
the hand-out or choose a different poem. It must be of similar length and written by one
of the poets on the list. Please get this approved by me ahead of time. As soon as you
are ready, you may recite the poem to me privately. If you choose to recite the poem
from memory in front of the class, you will receive five bonus points.
4. You will write your own original poem on any topic you choose. If you are uncertain if
your subject or content is acceptable, please check with me first. This poem should be at
least 12 lines in length and may be written in any style of poetry. You should submit this
poem on my webpage. At the end of this unit, an anthology of these poems will be
prepared and you will read your poems to the class during a poetry forum.
American Poets
Maya Angelou
e.e.cummings
Emily Dickinson
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Langston Hughes
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Naomi Shihab Nye
Sylvia Plath
Gary Soto