Joseph+WA

A. Primary goal: What do you want the students to understand more fully about "Song of Myself"? Frame this as a question. Why is this topic important to Whitman? How does this topic connect to other themes or concerns of the poem? How might this topic or question engage students' interest and/or experience? How does this topic or question related to broader issues in literature? How does it relate to broader cultural or social issues?**
 * I. Results


 * Question**: What do these lines and this scene (see [|blog post]) say about the rest of the poem and about Whitman's overall project with [|"Leaves of Grass"] in 1855? Think about the role of technology, what that technology says about class and social standing, and the social "worth" of the people in the scene, and what does it mean for the "skipper" to be heroic? Are there differences between the steamboat and the skipper's boat? What about the skipper and the people he rescues? Why do those differences matter?

What kinds of things does Whitman do within the poem to level (or invert) concepts of high and low?


 * Goals**: Students will gain an understanding of Whitman's push to level (or invert, at times) conceptualizations of high and low (in terms of class and social standing) and challenge our ideas of what certain people are capable of accomplishing. Students should be able to relate the implied prejudgments of his readers (i.e. that as a "lesser" man, the skipper is an unlikely hero) to their own prejudgments in their own lives, thereby understanding what Whitman was challenging his readers to do. Students should start to grasp that Whitman's poem does other things to challenge people's concepts of what is "worthy" and "noble" in terms of form as well as content.


 * B. Secondary goals: what do you want students to understand about reading poetry? about how to write about poetry? about how to connect text and context?**

Students should begin to understand that one small piece of a (good) poem relates in many different ways to the whole poem, and that the writer's overall strategy manifests itself in multiple ways throughout the poem.

i. formal writing or project (summative) essay; curation; rhetorical;**
 * II. Evidence of learning : How will students demonstrate that they are answering the question? What will your evidence of student learning look like? A types of writing/evidence:
 * ii. informal writing (formative)**

Students will meet in small groups (2-3) to discuss these lines and their place within the poem. If time permits, they might find other aspects of the poem that relate to the idea of the unification of the high and the low. After their discussion we will re-form the class and have a larger discussion about the concept to help make sure they got it.

For homework, students will produce a loosely structured two-part response to the poem that relates to their group discussion. In the first part, they will talk about how their group discussion and answer to the question (see "Question" above). In the second part, they will come up with their own example of uniting and/or inverting the high and the low in the poem's form or content. Responses to each part should be about a page (double-spaced) in length.


 * B. How will this show you that they've learned? how will you evaluate its success or failure in relation to your goals?**

The first part of the assignment is designed to give them a grasp on how something like this works. My questions are (hopefully) specific enough to guide them directly to where I want them to get. If it does, then they should be able to recognize that as an example of something else. If the assignment is effective, they will be able to produce their own example in the second part of the question.

The assignment is loosely a loosely-structured response paper, and not a formal essay. I want the students to be free to discuss their thoughts without the pressure of formal structure.

III. **Design** knowledge about the poem; cultural or historical knowledge; knowledge about Whitman? skills in reading? skills in analysis/making connections? skills in writing?**
 * A. what knowledge or skills will students need in order to produce their evidence of student learning?

I think I'll be able to give them any knowledge of cultural context they need (though outside research and knowledge is always welcome, of course). The main goal is for them to begin to see the Whitman's project as it relates to equaling and inverting concepts of high and low.

Students should be starting to develop skills in reading passages and relating things they see in those passages to greater works. We're working on observation over analysis, but hopefully some simple analysis would organically flow from this project in future discussions.

reading; writing; finding; collaborating;**
 * B. what kind of activities will develop these knowledges and skills? what kinds of things will students need to do to acquire these knowledges and skills?

A combination of the small group discussion, the large group discussion, articulating the substance of those discussions on their own in part 1 of the assignment, and then using those concepts in part 2.


 * C. how will you structure these activities? do some have to come before others? which? why? are some more or less important than others? are some more or less formal than others?**

First, I will tell them a little bit about concepts of high and low to give them some context. Then we will read the passage selected above together. They will split into small groups, and the assignment will follow as described above.

The structure for the assignment, because of the form it's taken, very much has to be in the order described above. The design is such that A will lead to B will lead to C. Everything builds on the previous step.