Julie Morton WWI poets high school

Teacher: Julie Morton Class: Honors British Literature
Date: 8/01/09 Writing genre: Response to text

CENTRAL IDEAS

Content: The experience of modern warfare in WWI disrupted romantic ideas about conflict.

Reading: Each poet employs literary devices to convey his feelings about patriotism and war.

Writing: Using details and elaboration to support an argument.


Focusing Question

What perspective does your poem convey about the First World War?

Focus (answer to focusing question)

Each writer uses different literary devices that convey perspectives often linked to his experience of the war.

Building Content Knowledge, Understanding of Writer’s Craft

• Frayer Model: patriotism, romanticism, modernism, ambiguity (vocabulary)
• Overview of WWI (paraphrase and summarize)
• Reading poems (taking notes – graphic organizers first identify literary devices, then help to explain what perspectives they convey).
• Reading poet biographies (taking notes)
• Think-pair-shares throughout.
• Discussion during graffiti board sessions when ss find examples of patriotism, romanticism, modernism, and ambiguity in the Overview of WWI article.
• Socratic Seminar: Who wrote these poems? (Ss need to match the correct poem with its writer using biographical information and textual clues from the poem).

Structures

• Take group notes on The Battle of Balaclava: Background.
• Take group notes on The Charge of the Light Brigade with Lit. Devices Handout (graphic organizer).
• Read and highlight evidence and reflection in the model essay.
• Ss use a collection of graphic organizers in the Poetry Essay Handout. Ss take notes for background / biography section for the intro, literary devices and perspectives for the body, and analysis questions for the conclusion.

Writing / Revising

• Write a section at a time with time for revision / sharing with partners for the thesis and introduction.
• Revise the body paragraphs independently by underlining examples from the text and highlighting reflections and interpretations.
• Revise / full group with the conclusion.
• Proofread in partners for flow and G.U.M.

Lesson Sequence

1. Frayer Vocab Model: patriotism, romanticism, modernism, ambiguity.
2. Read A Brief Introduction to WWI and paraphrase it.
3. Break ss into groups. Ask them to use the WWI article to discuss and write down examples of Patriotism, Romanticism, Modernism, and Ambiguity on separate butcher sheets with one word posted on each wall of the classroom. Discuss each sheet as a class afterward.
4. Read The Charge of the Light Brigade, and write down five questions about the poem. Share out questions.
5. Read background article on The Charge of the Light Brigade aloud.
6. Take who, what, where, why notes.
7. Review a list of literary devices.
8. Ask ss to read The Charge of the Light Brigade again in pairs and, as a group, identify literary devices.
9. Ask ss to read the model essay. Underline details from the text in red. Ask ss to highlight phrases and sentences that explain and interpret these details in blue.
10. Read “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke. Ask ss to reread it in pairs and find literary devices. Use the literary devices to determine the author’s perspective. Discuss. Repeat with each poem: The Distant Song by Siegfried Sassoon, Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen, and Does it Matter? by Siegfried Sassoon.
11. Create new groups. Give each group one of the three poet biographies with the poet names omitted. Ask each group to read its biography and deduce which poet wrote the poems above. Discuss as a class in a Socratic seminar format. Ss should use evidence from the poems and biographies to support their answers.
12. Ask ss to select a poem to write about. Using their poetry notes sheet, the WWI Introduction article, and the poet biography, ask ss to complete a Poetry Essay Worksheet in groups of their choice or alone.
13. After completing the Poetry Essay Worksheet, all ss should have constructed a thesis statement in response to the question: What perspective does your poem convey about the First World War?
14. Ask ss to pair-share and offer feedback on thesis statements and supporting points.
15. Give ss time to work silently on an introduction and return to their partner to pair-share for feedback and suggestions.
16. Allow ss time to construct body paragraphs at home, and ask ss to review their own work by identifying a.) their main ideas, b.) underlining evidence from the text, c.) highlighting inferences and reflection.
17. Ask ss to write conclusions analyzing how the author’s perspective may have been tied to his experience and if the literary techniques he chose were effective.
18. Proofread for fluency and G.U.M. in partners.

Assessment:

• Ss are able to articulate connections between literary devices, implied perspectives and the biography of the poems during the Socratic seminar and in their essays.
• Ss will self assess their work by identifying their own details and reflections in their body paragraphs.

Next Steps: Gradual Release of Responsibility
• Socratic seminar comparing and contrasting examples of modernist poetry before and after the First World War.
• A response to text answering the following: How is ambiguity important in T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock? Ss can draw on their experience identifying literary devices and perspective to analyze the poem in groups.

Model :

Tennyson conveys his admiration for the six hundred by constructing a poem with sounds and rhythms that help readers feel as though they were there. Each line has two stressed syllables in a falling rhythm, creating the impression of hooves, steadily carrying six hundred riders into an impossible battle. The faithful beat even continues through the mistakes of a general:
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
While Tennyson makes it clear that the orders are misguided and that the soldiers know this, the determined rhythm of the words continue, just as the men follow their orders into danger without dismay. Tennyson uses the blunder not as a way to criticize the war, whose purpose is never mentioned, but instead as a way of elevating his heroes. It is even more praiseworthy, Tennyson seems to be saying, that these men followed unreasonable orders without question.