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This unit will focus on understanding and interpreting poems. Whilst doing this students will also explore the different forms poems take and are expected to write their own poetry.
1 Introduction to poetry Literary (poetry) devices: ‘My Country’ – Dorothea McKellar Homework:
• What do the students like/dislike? • HYPERBOLE Visual/personal interpretation Find a poem, identify the discussed
• What is poetry/a poem? Class • SIMILE 1. Discuss imagery as a class – what is it? How literary devices and discuss what the
brainstorm then definition sheet • METAPHOR does it work? poem means to you (to be completed
No Classes (attached). • PERSONIFICATION 2. Listen to poem and discuss as a class in scrapbook).
• Poems with themes • ALLITERATION 3. Note personal interpretations (in scrapbook)
• Childhood poems 4. Visual interpretations – students to ‘draw’ the ‘My Country’ response (questions)
• ONOMATOPOEIA
image they conjure when listening to the poem
(oil pastels?) DUE: Wednesday 29th April
Discuss as class and complete worksheet.
2 AUSTRALIAN POETRY Homework:
Banjo Paterson Henry Lawson Find two Australian poems – copy
• Brief history of Banjo Paterson – focussing on Australia at that time, the need for a • Brief history of Henry Lawson (biography attached). them both into your scrapbook and
national identity (biography attached). • Poems: write a reflection for each.
• Poems: o ‘From the Bush’
o ‘Waltzing Matilda’ – original lyrics V popular lyrics o ‘The Ballad of the Drover’ – listen to & response Write your own poem about Australia.
o ‘The Man from Snowy River’ – listen to & response o ‘The Shearers’ – discuss the importance of mateship
o ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ – listen to & response DUE: Wednesday 6th May
3 POETRY ROTATIONS – 25 minute rotations Homework:
Small group work focusing on selected poets (involves reading of poem and interpretations/answering of questions – activities attached). Favourite poem this far – why? What
* William Blake * Rudyard Kipling * Robert Frost poetry devices/techniques are evident
* Emily Dickinson * Lewis Carroll * Edgar Allen Poe within the chosen poem?
DUE: Wednesday 13th May
4 POETRY COMPOSITION LYRICS AS POETRY Homework:
Students to compose and develop their own poems – Poetry Poker • What are songs? How are songs poems? Continue to develop scrapbook
• use different poets as inspiration and experiment with different styles of • Analyse poetic devices (you may like to touch (personal poem anthology).
poetry on more than those covered) used in the
• encourage students to focus on different themes for their poems See attached instructions/resources. following sng (three different styles/types of
• slideshow stimulus music):
1. ‘The River’ – Garth Brooks
2. ‘Music of the Night’ – Andrew Lloyd Webber
3. A popular song the students might enjoy
See attached sheet.
5 LYRICS AS POETRY – computer room (fishbowl) booked all week Homework:
Following on from the previous lesson students are to complete an analysis on at least Students to create their own song (poem) for their anthology. They may have background music to Continue to develop scrapbook
three songs of their choosing. go with it - must (personal poem anthology).
Task instruction sheet attached. DUE: Thursday 28th May
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Year Eight Poetry Unit
Assessment Task
Throughout this unit you are to keep a scrapbook that will be made up of poems we study in class, your
annotations and comments on poems, your reflections, any handouts from class and your own poems. To
receive a satisfactory pass within this unit you must keep your scrapbook up-to-date (which means you must
follow up any handouts if you are absent) and keep your scrapbook in a satisfactory manner, ensure all
homework and given tasks are completed and receive a pass for the assessment task (which includes all these
hurdle requirements).
*Please note – anything you include in your scrapbook will only been seen by your English teacher*
Final task:
Select two of your five poems and present them within your scrapbook in published form. These two poems
must have titles and be of substance. With each of you poems you must also include your reflection (100-150
words) and answer the given questions.
Reflection:
Below are some questions that may help prompt you when writing your reflection; however please write your
reflection in paragraph form, not question and answer form.
• Why did you write this poem?
• Did a particular poet influence you in writing this poem? If so, who?
• Did something else influence you? If so, what?
• Why did you select this poem to be published?
• Does this poem hold a particular ‘special’ meaning with you?
• What pleases you most about your poem? Why?
• What detail in the piece is exactly right? Why?
• What part of the poem are your still dissatisfied with? Why?
• Where could you include more specific details?
Questions:
You must answer the following questions alongside each of your published poems (in question and full answer
form).
• Which literary devices are evident within your poem (identify and provide examples of at least two)?
• Does your poem follow a particular style/form? If so, which one? If not, why did you write your poem
in the way in which you have?
• What is the theme of your poem?
De La Salle College English Department
Semester One
‘Writing’ Dimension
4.75
Task Description:
Produce a Poetry scrapbook that includes two (original) published poems with reflections.
Hurdle Requirements Requirement met Requirement not
(1 mark) met (-1 mark)
Submitted by due date
Scrapbook is in a presentable manner with headings, sub-headings and
images to complement text
All handouts included, all assigned tasks (including homework tasks)
completed and all poems studied included (with
reflections/responses/annotations).
At least five poems composed by student included
Two published poems with reflections and questions
Total: /35 %
Teacher Comment:
Very High High Medium Low Very Low Not Shown Below the required
Standard
At the Standard
Demonstrated a Demonstrated a Demonstrated a Demonstrated an Demonstrated a Not Satisfactory.
very high level of high level of satisfactory level of adequate level of basic level of Did not meet the
understanding of understanding of understanding of understanding of understanding of criteria for the
knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and award of a result.
skills in all areas. skills in all areas. skills in all areas. skills in all areas. skills in all areas.
100-85% 84-75% 74-65% 64-55% 54-40% 39-0% Assessment
Review
What is Poetry?
A poem may appear to mean very different things to
different readers, and all of these meaning may be
different from what the author thought he meant. For
instance, the author may have been writing some
peculiar personal experience, Which he saw quite
unrelated to anything outside; yet for the reader the
poem may become the expression of a general
situation, as well as of some private experience of his
own. The reader's interpretation may differ from the
author's and be equally valid-- it may even be better.
There may be much more in a poem than the author
was aware of. The different interpretations may all be
partial formulations of one thing; the ambiguities may
be due to the fact that the poem means more, not less,
than ordinary speech can communicate.
T.S. Eliot
What is a Poet?
TASK: Write one example of your own for each literary device.
Hyperbole –
Simile –
Metaphor –
Alliteration –
Personification –
Onomatopoeia -
‘My Country’
Dorothea Mackellar
• Look up any words within the poem of which you are unsure of the meanings.
Paterson wrote most of his poems on the 1890s. This was a time of droughts,
economic depression, strikes and the rise of the unions, especially the shearers’ union. It was also a time of
increasing nationalism, and of the movement towards federation of the separate Australian colonies. Railways
and the telegraph were brining the colonies closed together. By the 1890s about three-quarters of the
Australian population were Australian-born. There were looking for images and heroes that were uniquely
Australian and made clear the differences between their culture and the British culture of their parents and
grandparents. They found the answer in the bush and its people.
Paterson’s work clearly reflects the times in which he lived. Like fellow poet Henry Lawson, he wrote of a way of
life that had captured the public imagination because it should Australians as they wanted to see themselves.
Paterson’s poems, such as ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ were hugely popular in his
time, and remain so today. In 1895 his first book, ‘The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses’, sold out within
a week. This had never happened in Australia before, Paterson became a celebrity.
Although he came from a comfortable background and for a time worker as a city solicitor, Paterson wrote of
drovers and farmers, of swagmen and shearers, and of mountain horsemen and country race meetings. He never
forgot that his own father had been forced to sell his farm. He always wrote from the point of view of the
battler – even the swagman in ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was a battler.
(Chorus) (Chorus)
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, my darling? Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda,
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me,
Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boil
Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
Down came the jumbuck to drink at the waterhole, Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee, Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he put him away in his tucker-bag, And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag
‘You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.’ You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
Chorus Chorus
Up came the squatter a-riding his thoroughbred; Up rode the squatter mounted on his thorough-bred
Up came policemen – one, two, three. Down came the troopers One Two Three
‘Whose is the jumbuck you’ve got in the tucker-bag? Whose that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!’ You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
Chorus Chorus
Up sprang the swagman and jumped in the waterhole, Up jumped the swagman sprang in to the billabong
Drowning himself by the Coolibah tree; You'll never catch me alive said he,
And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the billabongs And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
‘Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?’ You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.
Chorus Chorus
"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side, Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough, In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride, On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
The man that holds his own is good enough. With the man from Snowy River at their heels.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between; And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam, He followed like a bloodhound in their track,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen." Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
So he went - they found the horses by the big mimosa clump - But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
They raced away towards the mountain's brow, He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump, But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
No use to try for fancy riding now. For never yet was mountain horse a cur.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills, And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight, Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills." Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
So Clancy rode to wheel them - he was racing on the wing And where around The Overflow the reed beds sweep and sway
Where the best and boldest riders take their place, To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring The man from Snowy River is a household word today,
With stockwhip, as he met them face to face. And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of "The Overflow".
Henry lawson
Henry Lawson wrote about the ordinary Australians he grew up with in ‘the bush’ and
later lived among in the city. His work shows great sympathy for those who struggle to
survive.
Although most of his adult life was spent in the city, Lawson is best known for this
poems and short stories about the bush. His vivid and realistic descriptions of rural
life, with is hardships and occasional humour, are based on his boyhood in the Mudgee
region of central New South Wales, and on nine months spend in the drought-stricken
‘Outback’, around Bourke, when he was twenty-five years old.
Young Henry Lawson experienced the end of the gold rushes, lived through the last of
the Cobb & Co. coaching days, and saw the opening of the railway through rural
Australia. Scattered through his works are word pictures of Mudgee’s blue hills, reddy
rivers, dusty tracks and dismal, worn-out goldfields. The drovers, bullock drivers and
innkeepers he knew, and the stories they told, come alive again in his writing. Some
experts see his poem ‘The Teams’ as the finest description of a bullock team in
Australian literature. There are also memories of the farmers who struggled to make a
living, and of the women who battled on alone when their men had to find work away
from home.
In 1892-93 Lawson spent time in the Bourke region of far-western New South Wales.
There he gained firsthand experience of the hardships faced by ‘travellers’ (swagmen)
looking for work and handouts, and of the difficulties of trying to keep a farm.
‘The Ballad of
the Drover’
Henry Lawson
25 minute rotations over four lessons; groups of 4-5 students. No teacher directed group, so
encouraged to roam.
Focus poets:
• William Blake
• Rudyard Kipling
• Emily Dickinson
• Robert Frost
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Lewis Carroll
Groups looking at William Blake and Edgar Allen Poe require internet access (students CAN share
computers but aim for 2 computers per group).
William Blake
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling was born in India. He and his sister Alice were sent back to England when he was
six. The children stayed with foster parents and were dreadfully unhappy. Kipling was punished for
reading books and began to read secretly by the light of a candle-end. Kipline was then sent to
boarding school where he was encouraged to write. Later he returned to India where he worked as a
journalist in Lahore. In his spare time he wrote many poems and stories. His first book of verse was
published in 1886.
Returning to England in 1889 Kipling found that his stories had made him a popular figure. In 1892
he married and moved to America for four years where his two children, Josephine and Elsie were
born. The family returned to England in 1896 and lived in Rottingdean in Sussex, where their son
John was born. Sadly, Josephine died of pneumonia in 1899 and John was killed whilst fighting in the
First World War (1914-18).
In 1902 he bought a house called Bateman’s in Sussex where he lived for the rest of his life. It was at
this house that his best know poem, ‘If…’ was written. Kipling declined the offer of Poet
Laureateship but was the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.
Kipling dies in 1936 and was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.
What inspired Kipling? What is it that makes Kipling’s
Kipling wrote a lot about India poems so special?
although he only spent six and a half Kipling’s poems reach out to lots of
years there. He wrote rhymed verse, people. They are not difficult to
some of it in the slang used by British understand and can be enjoyed by
soldiers in India, and he invented anyone, not just poetry specialists.
fictional characters such as Gunga His poetry is often labelled patriotic –
Din and Danny Deever. displaying a love of his country and
its empire.
Whose woods these are I think I know. The Narrative Poetry of Robert Frost
His house is in the village though; Directions:
He will not see me stopping here We can be sure that Frost thought very carefully about which details to leave in or out
To watch his woods fill up with snow. of the stories told in his poems. Sometimes these details are given directly. Other
details are ideas we need to figure out based on evidence--hints and clues--in the
My little horse must think it queer poem. An idea about a poem that is based upon evidence, but is not stated
To stop without a farmhouse near directly, is called an inference.
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year. In the chart below, decide whether there is evidence in the poem for the statements
about Frost's poem, "Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening." In the left hand
He gives his harness bells a shake column of the chart, you will see a series of statements about
To ask if there is some mistake. the poem. You need to decide whether these statements are given directly in the
The only other sound's the sweep poem, or whether they are inferences based on evidence in the poem. Some
Of easy wind and downy flake. statements may be inferences that are either not supported by evidence in the poem,
or are contradicted by evidence in the poem. You can either write your evidence in
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. your own words, or copy directly from the poem itself. If you are copying the exact
But I have promises to keep, words of the poem, be sure to put quotation marks ("") around those words.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. If a statement not supported or is contradicted by the poem, simply check the box in
the right hand column of the chart.
Log onto the following website and play around with the different
effects in telling the poem. What works best?
http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/writer/thebells.asp
4. Why do you think the way in which the poem is told makes a difference to the
listeners understanding?
Emily Dickinson
To fully understand the work of Emily Dickinson it is vital to first understand her.
Why do you think this might be so important? (Please answer in a full sentence in your
scrapbook)
Read the brief biography of Dickinson (overleaf) and brainstorm her characteristics (in
your scrapbook).
Then read Dickinson’s poem ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’ (first read silently to
yourself and then you may like to read it as a group). Which of Dickinson’s
characteristics relate to this poem? (Please answer in a full sentence in your scrapbook)
Finally, as a group, read and discuss Dickinson’s poem ‘My life closed twice before its close’.
If there is still time remaining you are to write a brief biography about you own life (only about 3-4 paragraphs) and then
write a 2-3 stanza poem that is reflective of your own life.
The poet was born in, and died in, a house called the Homestead, built by her grandfather Samuel Fowler
Dickinson in 1813. This house was sold out of the family, however, in 1833, and not re-purchased by Edward
Dickinson till 1855; so most of the poet's younger years were lived in other houses.
After her years at school, Emily Dickinson lived in the family home for the rest of her life. She cared for her
parents in their later years and was a companion to her sister Lavinia, who also stayed "at home" for her entire
life. Neither sister married. The extended Dickinson family included Austin's wife Susan Huntington Gilbert,
who lived for many years next door in the house called The Evergreens, and Susan and Austin's three children.
The myth, of course, is of Dickinson as a reclusive spinster-poet, brooding over a deep romantic mystery in her
past. The realities are more mundane. Especially among relatively wealthy families in 19th-century
Massachusetts, it was far from unusual for grown women simply to keep house as a primary occupation, neither
marrying nor working outside the home. The thing that sets Dickinson apart from other women of her class and
generation is simply her poetic gift, something attributable more to nature and culture than to some emotional
trauma.
We know much of Dickinson's life through her correspondences. She maintained a lifelong correspondence
with Susan Dickinson, even though they were next-door neighbors; this correspondence, preserved by Susan, is
the source for many of the poet's manuscripts. But Emily Dickinson also corresponded with school friends, with
her cousins Fanny and Loo Norcross, and with several people of letters, including Samuel Bowles, Dr. and Mrs.
J.G. Holland, T.W. Higginson, and Helen Hunt Jackson.
The central events, then, of Dickinson's life are those that are central to the lives of most writers: she wrote. She
compiled a manuscript record of nearly 1,800 poems, along with many letters. In or around 1858 she began to
keep manuscript books of her poetry, the "fascicles," hand-produced and hand-bound. In the early 1860s she
produced hundreds of poems each year. In 1864 and 1865, failing eyesight, which impelled her to make two
extended visits to Cambridge, Massachusetts for medical treatment, slowed her production of manuscript books.
But her production of manuscripts continued at a slower pace until her last illnesses in 1885-86.
Though she wrote hundreds of poems, Dickinson never published a book of poetry. The few poems published
during her lifetime were anonymous (see Publishing History). The reasons why she never published are still
unclear. A myth promoted by William Luce's play The Belle of Amherst (1976) is that Higginson discouraged
her writing; however, it is probably not the case that Dickinson met with rejection from the literary world. For
one thing, Higginson was instrumental in getting her poetry published soon after her death, suggesting that her
reluctance and not his disapproval was the barrier to him doing this earlier. Also, both Bowles and Hunt
Jackson arranged for anonymous publication of individual poems by Dickinson during the poet's lifetime. At
Hunt Jackson's suggestion, Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers publishing house tried to get the poet to submit a
volume of poems for publication in 1883; she declined.
http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/poetry/ed/bio.html
Jabberwocky
By Lewis Carroll
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Write a quatrain (a stanza of four lines, esp. one having alternate rhymes) that includes your own
invented words.
Jabberwocky
Some possible nonsense word meanings
Bandersnatch: A swift moving creature with snapping jaws. Capable of extending its neck.
Borogove: A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, something like a live
mop.
Brillig: Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin boiling things for dinner.
Galumphing: Perhaps a blend of "gallop" and "triumphant." (Used to describe a way of "trotting"
down hill, while keeping one foot further back than the other. This enables the Galumpher to stop
quickly).
Outgrabe: (past tense; present tense outgribe) – Something between bellowing and whistling, with
a kind of sneeze in the middle.
Toves: A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking
creatures which make their nests under sundials. They live on cheese.
Uffish: A state of mind when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish.
Wabe: The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a "wabe" because it goes a long way before it,
and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.
Poetry Poker
Objective: Create an original poem from five lines of five random words.
Too many times we stand aside and let the water slip away.
To what we put off 'til tomorrow has now become today.
So don't you sit upon the shore and say you're satisfied.
Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides.
-Chorus-
There's bound to be rough waters, and I know I'll take some falls.
With the good Lord as my captain, I can make it through them all.
-Chorus-
_____________________________________________________________________
Poetic devices used in "The River": simile, metaphor, alliteration, hyperbole, couplet, personification, etc.
_____________________________________________________________________
Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation. Hear it, fear it, secretly possess you.
Darkness wakes and stir imagination. Open up your mind; let your fantasies unwind.
Silently the senses abandon their defenses, In this darkness which you know you cannot find.
Helpless to resist the notes I write, The darkness of the Music of the Night.
For I compose the Music of the Night.
Close your eyes, start a journey to a strange new world.
Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before.
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender. Close your eyes and let music set you free...
Hearing is believing. Music is deceiving. Only then can you belong to me.
Hard as lightening, soft as candlelight.
Dare you trust the Music of the Night? Floating, falling, sweet intoxication.
Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation.
Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth, Let the dream begin; let your darker side give in
And the truth isn't what you want to hear. To the power of the music that I write,
In the dark it is easy to pretend... The power of the Music of the Night.
That the truth is what it ought to be.
You alone can make my song take flight.
Softly, deftly, music shall caress you. Help me make the Music of the Night.
________________________________________________________________________
Poetic devices in "Music of the Night": personification, imagery, alliteration, metaphor, simile, etc.
Songs as Poetry task
To be completed in your scrapbook
Note:
* You must have at least 3 songs.
* You must find at least 3 different poetic devices in each song.
* Songs may not contain profanity or inappropriate content.
Note:
* You must have at least 3 songs.
* You must find at least 3 different poetic devices in each song.
* Songs may not contain profanity or inappropriate content.
Poetic Devices: alliteration, ballad, elegy, irony, paradox, allusion, hyperbole,
metaphor, personification, assonance, couplet, imagery, onomatopoeia, simile
(Only some of these devices have been covered in class – you may like to explore those
that we have not covered.)