Poetry Analysis Help

Poetry Types and Terminology

51 Types of Poetry Mainly single sentence definitions of different types of poems.

Poetry Forms and Terminology Each form and term is linked to definitions and/orexamples.

Poetry-Wikipedia The sections on elements and genre might prove helpful.

Poetry Groups and Movements -Good place to start if you are trying to place you’re poet in a movement or want to know about some of the different movements.

Poetic Schools and Movements- A very brief statement of each movements main idea.

Movements: A more detailed summary of some of the major movements throughout history.

Timeline of Poets and Poetry A time line that shows birth and death of major poets as well as publication dates and movement dates.

Poets

Maya Angelou: Uncp, Poetry Foundation, Voices from the Gap

Robert Frost: Poetry Foundation, R.F. LIterary Criticism

William Butler Yeats: The Literature Network, Literary History

 

 

Developing the Class Utopia

Note: These are the directions my students will be using in order to complete portions of their Utopian Society Project.

Some questions to discuss as a group

1. What are the core values that the class agrees on and wants to live by?  For example, do you think everyone should be treated exactly the same?  Should everyone have a say in how the government is run?  Should there be a government?  Is hard work and individual effort to be rewarded?  Is education, an opportunity, a right, an expectation, or a threat?  Is there a greater concern in the society, such as “the environment before the people”?
2. Will there be a government?  What kind?  Will there be a single leader or multiple leaders?
3. Will there be laws?  Who decides them?  Who maintains them?
4. What kind of community is going to exist?  Will it be filled with technology like today, an industrial community, farming community, trade community, or something like Plato’s philosopher’s society?
5. Is there ownership of property?  Is there money?
6. Is there a physical infrastructure to the society?  For example, nearly every town in America has a post office, a police department, a fire department, a library, waste and city management, churches and schools.  If there are such things, how do they maintain operation?
7. How does language play a role in your society?  Is there a national language? Forbidden words?  Censorship?

Creation:

1. Develop a virtual world that highlights some of the most important places, buildings, etc. in your world.
2. Explain on paper the answers to the questions above.

Virtual World Directions

Note: These are the directions my students will be using in order to complete portions of their Utopian Society Project.

Virtual World Directions:

1. Choose five places, buildings or rooms that you feel are important to your story.
2. For each place, find descriptive literature from the book to help describe the world to others.
3. Find or create a picture that is appropriate and helps create the environment of each place.
4. Identify any characters or objects that might be in the room.  For example,  in the 1984 world a wall screen would be important or in the world of Fahrenheit 451 books would  probably need to be placed in some of the rooms.  Don’t forget, the objects don’t just exist in blank space.  A book would probably be found on a table, in a drawer, on a book shelf or some other object.
5. Be prepared to explain why your group chose each of the five places.

Lit Circle Report Directions:

1. Summarize the major events in your story and explain what you think the author is trying to say. (Theme)
2. If your story has a society that is already established (The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, 1984) explain the major conflict(s) your character has with the society.

2.1.     If your story develops a society (Watership Down, Lord of the Flies) explain how the society was developed and the leader was chosen.

1. If your story has a society that is already established explore the mindset of the creators of that society.  Why did they develop the laws and hierarchy special to that society?  Was it to promote certain values or deter ideas?

3.1.    If your story develops a society explore the mindset of the leader(s).  What were the primary concerns of the group when the society was forming?  Did they change and how?  What values did the leaders express as they formed their society.

1. How did language and/or communication play a role in the society found in your book?  Were there words unique to your world?  Did words in your book have a double or alternative meaning from words in our society?  Did the rulers control or try to shape the language?  Why?
2. Compare the society in your book with our society.  Are there ideas in the book that you would like to see implemented in our society?  Are there particular ideas in the book that disturb you and you would want to safeguard our society from?

Utopian Society Project

We have been examining the formation of a society.   Recall that we have looked at Plato’s ideal society, the Republic.  We examined Thomas More’s Utopia. In groups, we created preliminary ideal societies.  We looked at leaders within societies, such as Stalin and James Jones.    And each group has been reading a book that either explored a utopia or dystopia.  Now it is time to bring these ideas together.

The first part of the project, the Literary Groups will be creating a virtual world, based on the book they have been reading.  This project has two purposes, the first purpose is to familiarize you with using the software we are using, the second is to allow students that haven’t read your story “see” the world and get a feel for what it was like.

In addition to creating a virtual world of your book, your group will also need to summarize your book with a report that highlights the theme, the key events, how the society functions or was developed, what was effective with it, what was the major conflict of the characters, the vocabulary that was used and compare it to a society that you would like to live in.

The next step will be an entire class project.  Together, the class will develop a society that highlights the ideals of the group.  Just like you did for your lit circles, the class will create a virtual world that hosts important places or buildings.  The basic laws and functions of the society will be created in a report.

When the world is created we will attempt to recreate your society in the classroom and allow it to function for a given period of time –the amount of time will be determined by how much time I feel the class needs to adequately explore your society.

A final individual reflection paper will be written to share your experience in the creating and interacting of the world.

Changes to my Instruction

Photo Courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/

It is not easy to decide how to transform your instruction when you are given free rein on how that transformation is to take shape.   If I were told, I must improve my instruction by making sure that I have a lesson plan completed for every hour of instruction and it needs to follow Madeline Hunter’s template, it would be easy to accommodate and no weighty decision would really need to be made on my part; however, the decision has been left to me and I have to decide on an a transformative approach based upon my own principles.  I am initially drawn to the heritage model of teaching.  I am somewhat of an “old, Western dinosaur” when it comes to my own values.  I do believe that society’s moral compass is off because it is too busy trying to please everybody and in doing so has abandoned Truths, which require both a right and a wrong, for accommodation—I’m right, your right.  I believe there are certain universal Truths that can be found in nearly all wisdom literature.  This belief urges me to want to adopt an instructional model that would guide students into reading and evaluating these Truths.  The problem with adopting such a position is that it is a dogmatic position and could anger some students and parents.  While, I believe there are Truths it is not my place to instruct students in these views.  I will not entirely abandon this principle.  I believe that if students become avid readers they will come across much of these Truths on their own.  Therefore the number one principle I would use to guide my instruction would be to create avid readers.

I also believe that students need to be prepared for the 21^st Century work force, which means that they will need to be flexible, global, team thinkers.  Therefore, the second guiding principle of my instruction will be to help create thinkers open to new ideas and cultures.

In order to create readers and thinkers a couple of instructional models will need to be used.  I believe that Rosenblatt’s reader-response model is an effective starting point for creating readers; however, I believe that students will need to read with a purpose if they are going to become thinkers.  Therefore, I will also utilize a student-centered approach.  I am a fan of Vygotskey and believe that students can help each other become better learners and thinkers.  I will utilize literature circles, collaborative learning, jigsaws, and other forms of group work as the basis for my instruction.  I would prefer to pose cultural and social problems and let the students read and think together to come up with solutions.

I think that a study on utopias and dystopias is the perfect vehicle for answer the questions of cultural and social problems.  I think that giving the students a chance to create their own society, at least in the classroom, and allowing them to compare their society to other societies, both historical and fictional should create a high level of engagement for the students.   At the beginning of the course the students would be asked to write a paper on what they like or dislike about the society we live in and how can we make it even better.  Student will use the paper as a basis for discussion and help create a working model for an in-class society.   The students will be broken into literature circles to read books on different utopias and dystopias and asked to evaluate the societies, defining what worked, what didn’t.  The groups would also be asked to create model the society in-class, where each group would create a lesson and a means to demonstrate how the society in their books worked and let the class live in that society for a week.  Students would take on different roles during the week, they may be the governing body, they may be workers, students, etc… they would reflect on their experiences in that position, and if they are not happy with their lot in society, they will be asked to problem solve on how to fix it.  This may mean writing letters, creating new laws, hiring someone to quell the uprisings, etc…

At the end of each week, the students will discuss and evaluate their experiences and compare it to their created society and ask if there is anything they would like to change in the class society that was created at the beginning of the program.  The final project would be a class website where they would display their working model and the name of their society.

I believe that such a student-centered approach to the literature would engage the students on a high level.  As in Rosenblatt’s model, the students would be able to read and share their transaction with the text and they would also have a common consensus to the text as they apply what they learned to creating or recreating their societies.  The writing involved in it, will be both reflective and audience orientated, as they will be writing to government bodies or other entities that they identify in their reading.  The literature circles also allow for different reading levels and abilities, while the group work allows students to situate themselves in roles that address their diverse abilities.

I also believe that since the students are going to assume different roles, it will require independent thought and flexibility.   Students will not only have to think about how society works, but they will have to do so from different viewpoints.  Problem solving from different viewpoints creates flexibility by necessity.  Since the students will be asked on a weekly basis about changing their society, it will hopefully foster a sense of power and voice in the classroom and lead to students taking active roles in their learning.  If the students are going to be given this power, then the real challenge will be with the teacher.  What happens when students draw up new classroom rules such as, automatic A’s for everybody or some such law that jeopardizes school rules?  Obviously grades and school rules need to be followed, it would be best to be prepared for a meta-discussion about how the teacher and the class must work within the confines of school and state rules.

Transformation

Photo Courtesy Sir Mervs

In the movie, The Matrix, machines have taken over the world and created a virtual reality designed to keep humans in a content, comatose state in order to harvest the energy produced by living bodies.  Agent Smith, a virtual G-man designed to capture and destroy humans that have rejected the virtual program, explains the Matrix to Morpheus, a human that has rejected the program:

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world—w ere none suffered, where everyone would be happy?  It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.

Agent Smith’s observation would be the crux of my ideal class.  Agent Smith speaks of contempt for humans, but hidden in this observation is a real question: “How do humans define themselves?” I believe this is a huge question.  Literature, at the very minimum, can be described as an attempt to define the world. Teenagers, at the very minimum, can be described as attempting to define themselves. I believe that a literature class that focuses on this core question, “How do humans define themselves?” would create a high level of interest to students and hopefully help them become more enthusiastic readers.

The course would need to span the entire school year as I intend to go as deep into the rabbit hole as time would allow.  The course would begin with the scene I described above and a discussion about whether the students believe that we are at the peak of civilization and what role, if any, do students feel they play in that society.  We would then end the discussion by asking students to discuss how they think that society is created.

After the introduction, and our focus on the “peak of civilization” the class would start moving backwards in time by examining the foundations of societies, beginning with our own.  The class would first look at the “Declaration of Independence” we would look at it is the foundation piece for the United States of America.  First the students would examine the language to see what values are implied and debate whether our current society reflects theses values.  Then we would put on a historical lens and view the document in light of our relation with England.

At this point we would examine why people started coming to America, e.g. for religious freedom, for profit, to escape or because they were forced to leave.  We would ask why America was the “land of opportunity”.  During the discussion we would read selections from Thomas More’s  Utopia. The students would examine how More created the concept of a Utopia and discuss the possible consequences it had on our society.  The students would then be ushered further back in time to read Plato’s Republic to see how he influenced More.  It is here that students would begin to think about the concept of utopias and building the perfect society. The students would be given a discovery writing assignment that would help them identify their own values and priorities.  The paper would later be used when they are given a project of creating the ultimate classroom society.

The introduction to creating utopias and the paper on writing about their own values would then lead into the different types of utopias.  We would begin with religious utopias. The students would read passages about the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic versions of the Garden of Eden.  They would also read about the Hindi concept of Moksha and the Buddhist concept of Nirvana. The students would also look at heroic resting places such as Elysium and Valhalla.   The students would be asked to examine why these utopias all seem to be places of attainment in the afterlife and they would be asked to compare and contrast the different values that seem to be placed in achieving the utopias.  Were there any universal values that all societies seemed to value? Finally they would be asked to research each of these places and determine if the societies that had adopted these religious utopias reflected their values in their every day interactions.

The students would move on from religious concepts of utopia to economic and political versions of utopia, the students would examine Capitalist, Socialist, and Communist utopias through theoretical texts.  The students would be given definitions of different forms of government, Authoritarian, Anarchy, Anarchism, and Democracy (Wikipedia.org) and asked to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of each form of government and then evaluate which form of government they believe is most effective for the various economic societies.

When the students finish evaluating the forms of government they should be sufficiently grounded in the concept of creating a society and how to implement the societies. They would then be given the following quote from Plato:

Man…is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures. (Plato, quotationspage.com)

The students will be asked to discuss the quote in relationship to the first scene we watched and the utopias we have studied and finally they will be asked, “What happens when it all goes wrong?”

The  students will be read parts of Mien Kopf by Adolph Hitler, watch the movie Schindler’s List, they will listen to some radio broadcasts from Joseph Stalin, watch the History Channel presentation Joseph Stalin: Declassified, finally they will watch a video: Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.  The students will be asked to do the same assessment of values that they did for themselves on Hitler, Stalin and Jones.  They will then be asked to examine how each of these leaders was trying to achieve a utopia. They will hopefully see that each of these men was trying to force their values on others.

When the students have finished examining how one person can exert their values over a society, they will then examine how societies impose on other societies.  The students will watch Kingdom of Heaven to briefly touch on the Crusades. They will read A Particular Discource Concerning the Greate Necessitie and Manifolde Commodyties That Are Like to Grow to This Realme of Englande by the Westerne Discouries Lately Attempted, Written in the Yere 1584 by Richard Hakluyt (Wikipedia.org),  which was one of the first writings calling for the “planting of the English race” (Wikipedia.org).  The students will also read Annexation by John O’Sullivan where they would learn of the concept of “Manifest Destiny.”  The students would use this background information to watch a series of films from a postcolonial and historical perspective.  The students would watch, Last of the Mohicans, Gandhi, Mister Johnson and Rabbit Proof Fence.  After fully inundating students with a history of colonization the students would continue to keep their postcolonial glasses on and read The Tempest. The students will discuss how our literature shaped our views of different cultures as Western Civilization collides with them.  When we have finished, we will reflect on how all the ways we have seen utopias go wrong, then we would look at how authors try to teach us to create better worlds by exploring dystopias.

Students would watch 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. The students would be asked to examine what the author is reacting to and the intent of writing these stories.  The students would then be split into Literary Circles for independent exploration of different dystopia novels.  The students will choose from Nueromancer, Herland, Brave New World, and Ectopia. The books will offer a variety of perspectives for exploration.  Nueromancer represents a technological utopia with many new words that can be examined from both a structuralist and deconstructionist perspective and Herland is perfect for feminist criticism.    Throughout the literacy circle interactions, the students will explore the different forms of literary criticism and share what insights these explorations bring them.

The final project for the students will be to create a multi-media project based on all of their research and understanding of the utopias.  They will be asked to create a utopia based on their values and demonstrate what type of social structure they will use to create it.  They will need to demonstrate how they will address concerns and pitfalls of developing societies.  They will be asked to be conscious of the language they use and demonstrate how it can affect the conscience and values of their society. And they would be asked to answer the question asked at the beginning of the course, “How do humans define themselves?”

At the completion of this course the students would have covered nearly all of the standards for the state.  They will have explored mainly literature from the western world, but they would have also explored its effects on citizens from around the world and this historical evolution of different societies.   They will have written, read, listened, challenged to speak and debate their point of view.  They will have researched websites to understand other cultures; they will have been exposed to a variety of media from traditional literature to obscure documents to film and popular culture.

Implementing this course would not be difficult.  I have done much of the leg work in designing the course, the school has nearly every in the course, and because of the literary circle format, only a few copies of each book the school does not possess would be needed to purchase.  Many of the film and video clips are available free on line.  The rest can be purchased at a minor cost.

I have already implemented Literary Circles in the classroom.  The students are studying a scaled down version of the curriculum I have detailed above.  They are exploring the same question and will do a similar final project, however due to time constraints the students do not have time to do the historical exploration.

Discussion Analysis

Photo courtesy The Library of Congress

On January 19^th, 2009 the sophomore class of XXXXXXX High School were asked to partake in a discussion about community service in response to a brief video featuring President Obama talking about the importance of Martin Luther King , Jr.  Day and what it ought to be—a day of community service.  The following is an analysis of the attempted discussion , with the intent to utilize the data to improve discussion within the classroom.  Throughout the analysis I will refer to myself as “the teacher” in an attempt to distance myself and remain as objective as possible.

Physical Setting

The classroom is fairly large approximately 60’ x 30’.  The door to the room is in the middle of the west wall, effectively splitting the room in two.  The teacher’s desk is opposite the door facing out from the east wall.  The south wall is covered by a white board and the north wall contains two closets in each corner separated by a row of computers.  The students sit at an assortment of two-person tables.  The tables are aligned in three rows on the south side of the room and two rows on the north side of the room; each side is facing towards the center of the room, where a natural isle has been created, between the door and the teacher’s desk.   While the room is fairly large, the tables do not accommodate a circular layout.  The room is painted white with blue trim after the school colors.  On the three walls not covered by the white board are large posters created by the students that display the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens” created by Steven Covey.    Posters of the Six Traits of writing and the unit learning goals are the only other decorations on the wall.

Clear Purposes for Discussion

The discussion was part of a larger unit on the “American Dream”.  The students were provided learning goals at the beginning of the unit, they are on display and referred to daily.  The three learning goals for the unit are:

1. I will understand the concept of the “American Dream” during the Harlem Renaissance and Post World War II eras in relation to race, culture, and prejudice, and I will be able to make connections with my life and dreams.
2. I will be able to read text like the author intended it to be read.  I will pay close attention to punctuation, dialogue, and sentence rhythm so I can read with proper intonation, pace, and emphasis.
3. I will be able to take a critical stance and express judgments of people or things according to certain standards or values and express my understanding through a multi-genre presentation.

Prior to the discussion these goals were not mentioned. The students were in a routine of watching a short video clip and doing a written response to the video.  The teacher referred to this, “We will be responding to this, like we have with the other videos. Please look at the question at the bottom of your page that goes along with video number two”.  No other link was provided prior to the discussion.

Teacher Caring/Affect/Interest/ Enthusiasm

The teacher positioned himself near the door of the room.  This placed him between the North half of the room and the south half of the room and allowed eye contact between both halves of the room as well as effectively placing him at the center of attention.  The teacher smiled six times, twice in response to his own comments and four times in response to student comments.  He held his arms across his chest for thirty seconds near the end of the discussion.  This was most likely due to comfort than a barrier act.  The majority of the discussion (nine out of 13 minutes) the teacher held his hands clasped behind his back.  This posture was typically assumed while listening to student response or while walking amongst the students to observe written responses.  The rest of the time the teacher used his arms to point and to gesture while talking or questioning.  Three times the teacher walked with his hand in the air, which is the class signal to cease talking and bring eyes back to the teacher.  This was used when students broke out into table talk that was off topic.  The teacher shared personal experiences, “I was part of a group that was able to feed twenty-five-thousand people for a day…” and “I know a pastor who always brightens up a room…”.    The teacher also joked with the class, by taking a student’s misbehavior as an example of selfishness that brings a class down.  The teacher was familiar enough with the student to be able to bring laughter to the class.  The teacher did not use any physical contact, such as a pat on the shoulder, to display approval.

Discussion Support Activities

Prior to the discussion the students were given a response question, “Have you ever participated in any community service?  Why did do it and do you think it was important? Why or why not?”  They were then shown a video about the purpose of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day that discussed the importance of community service as an additional prompt to their writing.  After the video the students were asked to do a three minute free-write in response to the question.  After the free-write the discussion began.

Questioning Strategies

The attempted discussion lasted thirteen minutes.  The teacher asked 16 questions during the duration. Sixteen students were in the class for the discussion. There were eight female students, all white and eight male students, one black and one Hispanic. There were twenty-three  student responses to the questions.  Seven out of the sixteen students did not respond—five males and two females. There were nine male responses to fourteen female responses. There were twenty-three responses from white students and zero responses from the non-white students.  During the discussion the teacher called on three students by name, all three were female.  Two were asked a direct question, the third name was used to specify a student, “What can you do to make Riki’s day better?”  The questions the teacher asked were split, eight higher level thinking questions and eight lower level thinking questions. The teacher repeated the question one time; it was the only time a response to a question took longer than one second (2 seconds).    The pattern of responses was almost entirely teacher-student-teacher-student.  Twice there were multiple shout-outs, but the students did not respond to each other.  The teacher spoke for five minutes and forty-five seconds of the thirteen minute discussion.

Assessment of Student Learning from Discussion

The students did two raise of hands surveys during the discussion, but they only were knowledge level questions and had little to do with the actual learning goal.  A multi-genre presentation was implied in the learning goal where students were expected to draw upon their portfolios that contained their written responses.

Discussion Management

Every two minutes during the discussion (including the video and free-write) a snap-shot of on-task versus off-task students was taken.  Only ten of the sixteen students could be observed from the camera angle.  A total of eight assessments per student were taken for a total of eighty total assessments.   Fifty, on-task assessments were identified and thirty off-task assessments were identified.  An off-task assessment was given if the student did not have eye contact with the speaker.  Three females were observed to be on-task one-hundred percent of the time.  One male was observed to be off-task one-hundred percent of the time and one female was observed to be off-task seven out of eight times, all other students had a mixture of off-task versus off-task assessments. It should be noted that the two students that were off-task almost the entire conversation sat next to each other at the table farthest from the teacher, while the three that were on-task were seated closest to the teacher.  Twice during the discussion the students were off-topic and the teacher brought the student back on topic by raising his hand and waiting for attention.  The discussion fizzled out when students were unable to be drawn back into it through the raising of hands.  One student was sent into the hallway for a hall conference.  A lecture on behavior and wasting time ended the discussion and transitioned into the next part of class, which was reading from a play.

Assessment of data

The very first glaring concern for me is that nearly half of the students did not participate, seven out of sixteen students.  The teacher failed to notice this issue during the discussion and never attempted to call on the students or seek input from those students.  I see this as a major concern, as it does not send the message that everyone is encouraged to speak.  It also concerns me, because of the seven students that did not respond four of those students are at-risk of failing the class.  Another concern is that the two minority students were in the group that did not respond.  One of the main learning goals was to address prejudice and racism in our society.  Three of the students in the class are openly racist and have had to be sent from the class because of racist remarks.  This most likely had an important effect on the non-white students’ sense of safety and comfort in responding to the discussion.  The teacher and co-teachers in the class have a zero tolerance policy on racist comments; however it has not been enough to alleviate that concern.  Perhaps, as the class moves into a new subject the students that are uncomfortable can be brought back into the discussion and feel more comfortable.  The teacher would best help improve the level of participation by creating a planned system of calling on each students, whether it be by a seating chart, name chart, or by something similar to the reverse spiral technique mentioned in class.

The second concern I have is that the teacher talked for nearly six of the thirteen minutes and basically led the discussion in a question-response format.  There wasn’t any student-student response.  I think this could be improved if the teacher began with the a higher level question that was the learning goal and then was willing to wait longer for student response and encouraged student follow up.  From this data, the teacher followed each student response with a new question, instead of seeking additional input, lower level questions that help students lead up to a higher level response should only be used if the students are unable to address the higher level question adequately after a reasonable number of attempts and time.

Finally, I believe that the teacher better improve the discussion by having several strategies for encouraging response when students are struggling, such as pausing the discussion to write out responses, and meta-discussions about the discussion in order to receive feedback on why a discussion is not working, perhaps the students will have insights that data cannot predict.