Since "Fire and Ice"

Since Frost's poem, we have continued into analyzing poetry , as well as making connections to different poems and styles of poems. We read Shakespeare's "The Seven Stages of Man," (444)with "All the world's a stage....", Wordsworth's poem and sister's journal entry on the daffodils they experienced (457,459), and then "The Courage that my Mother Had" on page 461. Today students read and took notes on p 480-489 and were to bring an appropriate poem to class on Thursday to work on.
Some assignments have been:
444/5 PREREAD, Quickwrite and background;
446 (1-6)
460 (1-9) and both parts under 'Writing'
462 (1-7) and the writing part, too.

YOUTUBE LINKS for poems

Wednesday's homework is Emily Dickinson's "Hope" (is a thing....), question 1-5 on p. 439. Tomorrow we will examine Carl Sandburg's "Fog", and students will examine Frost's "Fire and Ice". For this, watch two short youtube clips, the lecture one first, and the photostory one second. Total time on these is less than five minutes. Links are available on the 102 page link on my webpage, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZRSIevoc3c is the lecture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RicVl2V7ixs&feature=related is the "music video"

Poetry: from Writing to Analyzing and Back

This week started with a poetry terms quiz. With 31 words and a list of definitions, it was surprisingly long. After writing some imagery poem and a Catalog poem (modeled after either a Maya Angelou or Naomi Najib Nye example) last week, we moved into haikus today, both reading about them, analyzing them , and writing them (pages 418,419,421).
little bits of words
on the page, in the mind's eye
time to write haikus
Tuesday we progress on through some figures of speech us on pages 428-429; Wednesday we slide into 435-439 with Emily Dickinson's "Hope is a thing..."
For the rest of the week, we progress through more selections in the text book.

Rhyme Time!

Yesterday we embarked on our poetry unit. After I demonstrated how the theme song to "Gilligan's Island" held and iambic pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables, students had a list of poetry terms to define and of which to provide examples. This week, we'll start reading and exploring poems in the textbook, really breaking down their use of poetic devices to create an effect. Students will also be writing some poems as we further sneak into poetry and what the poems all mean.