Welcome to the classroom component of the 2019 National Poetry Month’s education project, Dear Poet. The following unit incorporates multimedia and classroom activities to encourage students to explore and interact with poetry by first writing letters to important historical poets as practice, then writing letters to poets on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors.
While this unit may be most appropriate for middle and high school students, it can be easily adapted for younger students as well. You can use the activities one right after the other, or separate them, as you integrate poetry with other areas of study throughout National Poetry Month. The activities are designed to reach diverse learners through multiple entry points and can be modified further for your particular students.
Aligned with the Common Core Standards, these activities address the three literacy areas of Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening.
Reading, Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4
Writing, Production and Distribution of Writing:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4 and 5
Speaking and Listening, Comprehension and Collaboration:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1
“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop
“The Bean Eaters” by Gwendolyn Brooks
“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes
“The Gray Heron" by Galway Kinnell
“The Little Mute Boy” by Federico García Lorca
“Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich
Objectives
Students will
Pre-Activities
Whole-class Warm-up: The Idea of Voice
Individual and Small Group Reading: The Poet’s Voice
Explaining Their Choice
Make sure your students save notes from this activity, as they will use them when they write letters.
Vocabulary
Ask your students to keep a running list on the front board of the words in the poems they do not understand. These may include:
assertion
assiduous
bartered
bondsman
casual
chipware
connive
Cousteau
crenellated
expressive
flatware
fluster
foundry
furrow
humble
immerses
intent
leeches
linear
maritime
obscurel
redeem
schooner
stalked
sundry
tentative
threadbare
twinges
vaster
vermeil
Objectives
Students will
to write a letter to a poet whose voice speaks to them.
Pre-Activities
Whole Class Warm-Up: Whip-Arounds
Invite students to stand up and form a circle. Do the following whip-arounds one after the other. Start each cycle with the following prompts:
Repeat the cycles using as many of the following prompts as you can: “I see…,” “I hear…,” “I dream…,” “I imagine….”
Ask students to sit down at their desks to write how they are feeling (or what they see, hear, dream or imagine) at this moment using only descriptive words. They should try to capture—in words only—some of what happened when they moved and verbalized. (This may be difficult, but they should try. It will get them somewhat closer to what poets have to do with the tools they have—the blank page, their internal voice, rhythm, and words.)
Generating Questions
Ask your students to take out their notes from the lesson where they responded to poets’ voices and discussed their choices. They will use these notes when they write draft letters to these poets.
Whole Class Writing Activity: First Draft
Peer Review: Mirroring Activity
When your students have finished writing their first drafts, do the following:
Second Draft (can be accomplished either in class, combined as in-class assignment and homework, or as homework):
“The Dream That I Told My Mother-in-Law” by Elizabeth Alexander
“Lost Dog” by Ellen Bass
“Blues on Yellow” by Marilyn Chin
“Kata: Bus Stop” by Forrest Gander
“Line Drive Caught by the Grace of God” by Linda Gregerson
“The Letters Learn to Breathe Twice” by Brenda Hillman
“Move” by Alicia Ostriker
“A House Called Tomorrow” by Alberto Ríos
Objectives
Students will
Pre-Activity
Whole Class Warm-Up
Remind your students of the warm-ups they did to begin to understand how voice can be expressed by only using words.
Collaborative Work: Reading and Viewing the Poems
Note: Before asking your students to read poems by the Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets, make sure you read through the list above and choose the ones that are most appropriate for your class. (Because of its subject matter, “Blues on Yellow” by Marilyn Chin is most appropriate for a high school audience.)
Distribute the poems you have chosen (or have students read them online using the links above).
Ask your students to get back in their groups for a new discussion. The purpose this time, however, is for them to see if they can come to some sense of a shared meaning for each of the poems on which they choose to focus. They are to:
Note: It is important to tell your students that you are not looking for a “right” interpretation of the poems, rather for their reasoned interpretations. The emphasis should be on their reasoned explanation with examples—not on finding the “correct meaning.” They will not only have a good discussion about what they think; they will also be able to use this information when they write to the Chancellor of their choice.
Vocabulary
Ask your students to keep a running list on the front board of the words in the poems they do not understand. These may include:
adroitness
anise
blueprint
brawl
Buddah
cascade
casters
contentment
deliberate
destiny
dismantles
felicity
forearm
fractured
frailty
Fuji
fundamentally
gild
harmonies
hath shorn
hoard
Hokusai
humbling
Invincible
keened
leathery
libated
mellow
nigh
oblivious
parses
quaint
ravaged
seething
sieve
squander
suffused
Taraxacum officionale
torso
unreborn
upstream
vial
waft
yellow-bellied sapsuckers
Objectives
Students, in their unique voices, will write a formal letter to a poet who is a present Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets using:
(You can find examples of previous letters here.)
Pre-Activities
Whole Class Warm-Up
Remind your students that now they will be writing formal letters to some of the Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. The following activities are all concerned with writing these letters.
When they are finished, ask each individual student to choose a poem or poet that spoke to them from the poems they read by Chancellors of the Academy.
Generating Connections and Questions
After your students have chosen the poet to whom they would like to write, ask them to read and view the video of the poem carefully again, jotting down lines, words, and images that jump out at them. What questions do they have for the poet about the poem and how it was written? What other questions do they have about how to read a poem in front of an audience? When they have finished writing lines, words, images, and questions, ask for volunteers to share some of these with the whole class. Make a record of some of these on the board at the front of the room. Explain why you chose the ones you did.
Writing a Formal Letter: First Draft
Peer Review: Mirroring Activity
When your students have finished writing their first drafts, do the following:
Second Draft (can be accomplished either in class, combined in-class and homework, or as homework)
We encourage you to submit your students’ letters for possible publication on Poets.org in the summer of 2019. Send all letters via post or email by the end of day on April 30, 2019. Please include your name and contact information; each student’s name and grade; the poet who inspired each letter; and the name and mailing address of your school.
The Academy of American Poets
ATTN: Dear Poet
75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901
New York, NY 10038