Assignment 1

Choose a poem and explicate it in terms of theme, audience, tone, point of view, diction, figurative language, rhyme and meter (if applicable).

• How does the style contribute to the meaning of the poem?
• What is the significance of the title?
• How does this poem speak to you as a reader?

Assignment 2

Poetry is often intimidating to young readers. Choose a particular poem and devise a lesson plan for teaching it. Address the elements of poetry listed above while keeping in mind accessibility and relevance to the reader.

• What type of assignment (creative or analytic) might you give for teaching that poet?
• Can you think of other poems not on this list that you would want to include and why?

**PLEASE MAKE SURE ASSIGNMENTS ARE IN SEPARATE DOCUMENTS.

Readings:

• Shakespeare sonnets:
  • 130 "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
  • 73 "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
  • 29 "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eye"
  • 18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
• Robert Frost “Design”, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, “The Road Not Taken”
• Emily Dickinson “Faith is a fine invention”, “Because I could not stop for Death”, “I heard a fly buzz when I died”
• Walt Whitman“Oh Captain! My Captain!”, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
• Langston Hughes “Theme for English B”, “The Weary Blues”, “Harlem”
• Maya Angelou “Caged Bird”, “Phenomenal Woman”, “Still I Rise”
• Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”, "The Emperor of Ice Cream”
• Naomi Shihab Nye “Valentine for Ernest Mann”, “Famous”
• Billy Collins “On Turning Ten”, “The Lanyard”