Joseph's+Design

This is going to be pretty schematic at first, and I'll update it as I think about it.

With these results in mind, the following is a single session lesson-plan (group discussion style).


 * 1) Students will come to class having read the poem. Beforehand they are told that there are no right answers and no trick questions**.**
 * 2) They will (hopefully) have some notions of how they read the poem, what they liked and didn't, what parts are emphasized, and some sense of the poem's inflection and cadence.
 * 3) A student volunteer will read the poem aloud. The instructor will read the poem aloud with different inflelction and emphasis.
 * 4) The students will be asked (in discussion format) if they noticed anything different about the two readings, and what they were, and how it affected their perception of the poem.
 * 5) As I cannot predict student responses, I'll just say that this line of thought will be taken until there is nothing more to say. The point of this is that they get some sense of the possiblity of being able to SAY the poem different, and how it affects what they hear
 * 6) It can be pointed out, if they don't get it, that they heard (hopefully) two (if only slightly) different takes on the exact same poem, thus planting the idea that multiple visions can come from the same piece.
 * 7) Students are asked how they responded to the poem.
 * 8) Did they like it?
 * 9) Why?
 * 10) Help them articulate the why, leading them into rhetorical devices, such as theme, imagery, tone, diction, meter, etc.
 * 11) If they're not sure why they liked it, there's a lot of room for leading questions
 * 12) What kind of picture did you get in your head?
 * 13) How did it make you feel?
 * 14) Where does that picture come from? wgat sort of words create it?
 * 15) Do you like the way the poem sounds as it's read?
 * 16) Maybe try to compare it to a song: the tune is to a song as the meter is to a poem.
 * 17) What does the meter have to do with the theme of the poem?
 * 18) The students will be baited (as best one is able) to disagree with one another
 * 19) If this doesn't work, the instructor offers his own contrary reading of the peom (in simplistic terms).
 * 20) For an advanced group, the ironic reading can be presented.
 * 21) The students are asked which reading is right?
 * 22) What makes one person's take more right than another's?
 * 23) Why?
 * 24) Students arirve at the conclusion that a poem is a subjective thing, and no one reading is exactly right, even though everyone starts with the exact same text.