About This Lesson
This unit focuses on examining poetry, short stories, essays, and speeches. Students will read selections from Realms of Gold, Volume 3 by various authors.
The unit allows students to study literary techniques unique to poetry, and exposes them to philosophical ideas and emotional issues not always present in prose. Poetry invites students to play with the power of language as a form of expression, highlighting the connections between form and meaning. In this unit, students will read poetry that crosses time, history, gender, and culture and asks them to consider the rules of Standard English in new ways. What is the rule? Why should it be followed? How does breaking the rule in this poem influence meaning or tone?
Students will look at the structure of storytelling through short stories, and will read several essays and speeches containing arguments, explanations, and/or opinions.
Students will focus on sound, structure, meaning, and shifts in voice and mood, and focus on the Greek and Latin roots ago/acta, brevis, verbum, and port. The writing assignment is to write and publish a poem.
