Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Self-Assurance And Literature, Stephanie Wang '14

2012 Fall Semester

Recognizing our faults and failures is no voluntary task. We are cautious, almost reluctant, to do so as those shortcomings cast a shadow over the ideal lives we would like to have. Our inability to confront our problems leads us to follow the lives of characters in books and stories whose flaws are apparent to us – characters who struggle valiantly against or fall miserably to the challenges they face. From the epic Beowulf, where the god-like hero Beowulf fights glorious battles, to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, where common folk embark on a pilgrimage, we are fascinated by …

Reputation: A Destructive Force, Srisha Kotlo '14

2012 Fall Semester

In Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, a soldier “[seeks] the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth” (“Shakespeare”). Shakespeare portrays reputation as a bubble because just as bubbles are fragile and can pop at any moment, a man’s reputation is delicate and can be lost in an instant. Reputation and prestige are highly valued by characters in many stories and plays. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Cassio and Othello strive to preserve notable reputations while Iago intends to use reputation as a tool for manipulation, and as the play unfolds they get exceedingly desperate to defend their reputations. This …

Marital Power Plays, Gina Liu '14

2012 Fall Semester

William Shakespeare’s Othello describes the deterioration of the jealous Moorish general Othello’s marriage with Venetian noblewoman Desdemona. This domestic crisis, ignited by conniving manservant Iago’s careful manipulations, hinges upon one handkerchief, its significance within Othello’s and Desdemona’s courtship, and its engineered discovery in the bedchambers of Michael Cassio. Just as this small handkerchief assumes an integral role, the actions of Emilia, Iago’s wife, enable the fruition of his plots but ultimately result in his exposure and downfall; thus, Othello documents the decline of not one, but two marriages. The largest contrast between these two relationships is division of power, for …

The Strongest Wind, Vinesh Kannan '15

2012 Fall Semester

The essence of the American Dream is that it promises those who embrace it a spirit of hope that they can become anything they wish, doctors, lawyers, mothers, volunteers, or even heroes. Just as these dreams are different, the way in which Americans embrace them is just diverse. When considering the conglomeration of identities in a society such as that of America, such differences can often be strange, unfamiliar, and even harsh from a new perspective. In her short story, “Rules of the Game,” Amy Tan, a writer of Asian descent herself, prompts her audience to ponder a new perspective, …

Performing Poetry: Managing Tone, Pitch, Volume And Rate, Erin Micklo

Understanding Poetry

This lesson teaches students the importance of varying the tone, pitch, rate and volume of their voices when performing a poem. Emphasizing different words and varying the delivery will alter the meaning of the poem that the students are reading. This is in preparation for the Poet Laureate presentations, when they will read aloud their poet’s poem, reflecting their group’s interpretation of the poem.

A Poet’S Cento: Reflecting On The Written Word Through Writing, Nicole Trackman

Understanding Poetry

Students will create their own cento using lines from poetry discussed in class during a poetry unit. In a short analysis, students reflect on the lines of poetry that they chose to include as well as their process as a poet. This lesson allows the students to become even more familiar with their previously studied work while working through the writing process as an author. The short reflective analysis prompts students to be metacognative about their process and product. This lesson is best used at the end of a poetry unit.

The "Purposes" Of Poetry, Tracy A. Townsend

Understanding Poetry

This classroom discussion-oriented lesson, which takes between sixty to seventy minutes, exposes students to two very different poetic styles and voices (William Carlos Williams and T.S. Eliot) and challenges them to think about their own relationship to poetry. This is a useful lesson to work into the beginning of a longer unit on poetry, and can be used as a preparatory discussion for unveiling the Laureate Project assessment to your students (also available on the Digital Commons). This lesson is suitable for grades 9-12.

Explicating Poetry: Shakespeare's Sonnet 46, Adam Kotlarczyk

Understanding Poetry

The term “explication” comes from a Latin participle of explico, which means to “unfold” or “disentangle.” The term is often applied to philosophy and to literature; in literature, it has become a procedure very important to New Criticism. In the process of explication, a reader forges a detailed analysis of the structural and figurative components within a work, focusing on ambiguities, multiple possibilities of interpretation, and interrelationships between various elements of the text.

This lesson introduces students to explication through the reading of a complex poem, practice explicating it as a class, and reading a model explication about the poem. …

Determining The Tone In A Poem, Erin Micklo

Understanding Poetry

This lesson instructs students how to do a close reading of a poem, using clues within the poem to determine the tone of the poem.

Manipulating Tone, Margaret T. Cain

Understanding Poetry

Tone, of the emotional weight of a poem, is difficult for many high schools students to apprehend, in part because they've had little practice, and in part because they have a limited affective vocabulary. One way to work successfully with tone is to ask students to create it for themselves by modeling--but in opposition--the work of a poet, in this case, Edgar Lee Masters.

America In Verse: The Laureate Project, Leah Kind, Dan Gleason, Erin Micklo, Margaret T. Cain

Understanding Poetry

The purpose of this project is to allow students to use their (developing) skills of poetic explication and close reading, combined with research and analysis, to discover and establish a solid case for a poet they will nominate as the next American Poet Laureate. Working in groups of 3-4, students will identify a published, living American poet who has not yet been designated a laureate. The project demands a wide array of skills as the students research bibliographic information on the poet: read and analyze the poet’s body of work and select one central poem to represent that poet; amass …

Chaucerian Self-Portrait, Margaret T. Cain

Understanding Poetry

There is no better way to understand how an author uses language than to attempt to use language in the same way. This activity challenges students to observe in Chaucer's descriptions of his Pilgrims the wealth and significance of detail and to create a portrait of themslves that is similarly rich in evoking personality.

Angel Island Poetry: Reading And Writing Cultures, Adam Kotlarczyk

Understanding Poetry

Object of a darker chapter in American history, the Angel Island Poems (as they have become known) are a recently discovered body of over 135 poems, written primarily in Chinese. These were literally carved into the walls at the Angel Island Immigration Station, where Chinese immigrants were detained, sometimes indefinitely, between approximately 1910-1940.

This lesson demonstrates how history and culture can be integral to our understanding of poetry, even poetry that is deeply reflective and personal in nature; by requiring students to model and produce their own poetry, it also makes evident that writing poetry is a creative instinct and …

Triggering Subjects V. Actual Subjects, Tracy A. Townsend

Understanding Poetry

This classroom discussion-oriented lesson, which takes between sixty to seventy minutes, involves close-reading of texts, use of evidence to convey an interpretation, and discussion of authorial purposes and techniques. Students use poet Richard Hugo’s theory of poetry having both a “triggering subject” and an “actual subject” to analyze and respond to example poems selected by the teacher. The end goal is to engage in a discussion of how poets use observation and experience to take sometimes everyday moments and convert them into thoughtful, surprising, and moving commentaries. This lesson is well-suited to preparing students to read poetry more effectively and …

Imitism: Learning Imagism Through Imitation, Nicole Trackman

Understanding Poetry

Students will learn the components of Imagism through works of William Carlos Williams and D.H. Lawrence. As authors, students will demonstrate their understanding of this poetic movement through an imitation of either Williams’ poem “This is just to Say” or Lawrence’s poem “Green”.

Why A Lost Lady Is Naturalist, Judy Liu '14

2012 Spring Semester

In Steven Crane’s Maggie, people survive in a downcast world, where desperate people squelch the hope of those around them. This hopeless environment reduces the characters, even the once innocent, beautiful Maggie, into a creature that is more animal than human. This situation is also seen in A Lost Lady. Instead of having happy, idealized events, both novels are realistic and often pessimistic, with characters whose descriptions and behaviors do not match up with what is expected of a human being. Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady is a naturalist text due to the dehumanization of the characters through …

A Poem And Its Painting, Jenny Lee '13

2012 Spring Semester

Charles Bukowksi, one of the most controversial poets of the 20^th century, loved very few things- alcohol, sex, his typewriter, and classical music. His poetry is considered down-to-earth and easily relatable, but it is still able to maintain a high level of artistic and literary merit. His skill as an artist becomes clear when his poem “Dostoevsky” is juxtaposed with Caravaggio’s famous painting, “The Sacrifice of Isaac.” This painting depicts an angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing his son, Isaac. Although these pieces come from different artistic media, painting versus the written word, their shocking similarities are a testament to …

The Naturalist Meaning Behind The Words, Mateusz Wojtaszek '14

2012 Spring Semester

Charles Darwin changed the face of biology and science when he published his groundbreaking work of scientific literature, On the Origin of Species. He proposed that all organisms are related and that a force, known as natural selection, acts on all living things. This book opened a whole new world for biologists everywhere. But it also brought about a change in the philosophy of literature, which is known as the naturalist movement. Writers began to believe that humans and animals are, in the end, the same- they are affected by similar forces and have the same instincts. Novels such as …