Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 7: Formal Paper

Students could write a formal paper analyzing a poem in detail: form, content, and background.

This could be instead of or in addition to teaching a poem in a class presentation.

Alternative activity: Students could write a paper, a journal entry, or a poem about writing and reading poetry.

Poetry Unit Wrap-Up Activity 6: Teach a Poem

Have each student present a poem to the class.

After reading the poem aloud, students can discuss the following:

• Author - Who is the author? What is his or her history? When did he or she write this poem? Give additional pertinent author background information.


• Figurative Speech - metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole


• Poetic Devices - onomatopoeia, repetition, alliteration


• Rhyme Scheme - Does the poem rhyme? If so, which lines rhyme? How many lines does the poem contain? How many stanzas? Is this poem in a particular form such as a sonnet or a limerick?


• Meter - What is th meter of the poem? Iambic? Trochaic? How many syllables are accented per line?


• Analysis of the Poem - What does it mean? How is that meaning conveyed? Could there be alternate interpretations?

Newspapers

If you are doing a newspaper unit, your students might find it interesting to do a study of how different ethnic groups are represented in the newspaper.

• How many stories members of a group are mentioned in
• What types of stories members are mentioned in
• How members of a group are represented in the stories
• What sections of the paper represent members of a group the most
• Compare the amount and type of representation in the newspaper with representation in other forms of media
• Compare the amount of representation in the newspaper with the group's percentage in the area's population
• If a person only read the newspaper and never came into contact with people, what might he or she think about each ethnic group?
  

It would be interesting to see what types of conclusions students draw from a study such as this.

Students could break the data down further and look at how men and women of particular groups are represented. Or they could look at different age groups.