Romantic Poetry Lesson

1. First I will read the poems or pieces of the poems to generate interest and I will model how to
do the S.O.A.P.Stone activity.
2. Then I will allow groups to choose a poem since we are differentiating for interest.
a. Longfellow:
i. The Tide Rises The Tide Falls
ii. The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
b. Thanatopsis
c. The Song of Hiawatha
3. Those who choose The Tide Rises, will also do the Midnight Ride in order to compare the levels
of Romanticism. The Tide poem is very short, but the Ride poem is very famous and high
interest. I will push some of my higher students this direction even though they are choosing by
interest because this will challenge some of those students a bit more, not because they are
reading two poems, but because they are comparing the two. They still only need to complete
one Soapstone worksheet because they shouldnt be doing more work, just more analysis.
4. The groups will complete their worksheets
5. Then the groups will share with the other groups. This is how:
a. I will draw a chart on the board like this:
Longfellow Thanatopsis Hiawatha
Speaker
Occasion
Audience
Purpose
Subject
Tone
b. Then I want a member from each group to fill in one thing that they learned in that
section or that was particularly interesting about their poem.
c. Then we will have a discussion as a whole class about the similarities and differences.