This resource provides a lesson designed to utilze letter and wordplay as students create a poem as a class. Afterwards, students will work independently to draft a word poem of their own.
In this lesson, students examine imagery in T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by first reading the poem and then creating illustrations of the imagery he uses in it.
The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.
People often say that mankind should learn from history. Charles Dickens, whose books are considered classics, set his novel A Tale of Two Cities in the past. He wanted his readers to learn from the bloody French Revolution and from the widespread brutality in London. Both cities (Paris and London) offer the reader a glimpse into dark and dangerous times. As students read about Dickens's Victorian setting and learn his view of the French Revolution, they will think about what makes a just world. Students will have a chance to think about their own experiences, and, using techniques they have learned from Charles Dickens, they will do some writing that sends a message about your own world.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
To complete the unit accomplishments, students will:
Read the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities.
Read several short pieces, including a biography of Dickens and excerpts from other literature, to help them understand Dickens’s world and the world of the novel.
Explore new vocabulary to build their ability to write and speak using academic language.
Practice close reading and participate in several role plays and dramatic readings to help them experience the dramatic writing style of Charles Dickens.
Write a vignette and a short narrative piece, and practice using descriptive detail and precise language.
Write a reflection about the meaning of Dickens’s novel.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
How does good storytelling affect the reader, and how can a good story promote change in the world?
What was the Victorian view of gender roles?
How can power be abused?
What is loyalty ? What are the limits of loyalty?
In this lesson, you will review Dickens’s biography and his concerns as a writer, and you will begin to read and annotate A Tale of Two Cities.In this lesson, students will review Dickens’s biography and his concerns as a writer, and they will begin to read and annotate A Tale of Two Cities.
Students will take on a mystery, Sherlock Holmes style, to uncover the secrets, history, and deeper meanings of Moyo Ogundipe's painting Soliloquy: Life's Fragile Fictions.
Students will be able to: explain why Ogundipe used particular colors, patterns, and images for his painting; discuss what the snakes and birds symbolize in the picture; and express in their own words at least three reasons the different elements of the painting are a treasure.
This lesson looks at the song lyrics of Bruce Springsteen as lyrical poetry. Students analyze his use of imagery, hyperbole, and vivid language in his songs, then write lines of their own lyrics that use similar language.
In this lesson students examine how imagery is used to represent ideas, themes, periods of history, and make cultural connections to poem, "Still I Rise." Students will reflect through written expression how resiliency is in their lives, school, and community.
In this activity, students look closely at persuasive imagery in Nadine Gordimer's "A Chip of Glass Ruby." There are three versions with varying levels of support for students.
This lesson helps students become more familiar with poetry concepts by using photography to jumpstart the critical thinking process. Students compare photographs to poetry after recording their reactions to each.
In this lesson, students define and discuss imagery before searching the text of John Steinbeck's classic novel Of Mice and Men for examples. Students will use their findings as the basis for a literary analysis essay.
Students read and respond to Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry." Students then write about a favorite poem and imagine the perfect way to read it.
In this lesson, students review the definition of imagery and look at some examples before practicing their own use of imagery by revising boring sentences with better examples of imagery.
In this lesson focused on Walt Whitman's poetry, students use "I Hear America Singing" as a model to write a poem about their own environment - in this case, their school.