The majority of the above is a theoretical exploration of the “city poem” and the role of sound and materiality in the analysis. Parts of this unit’s classroom approach is inherently intended to be broad and open, so that it may apply across secondary content levels and subjects. This reflects my own personal academic interests in both the disciplines of history as well as English literature. Additionally, it is intended to be adaptable to different grade levels. I believe that the essential questions posed later in this section are appropriate for students in grades 7 and above. Adaptions can be made based on the difficulty and selection of the poems discussed in the class readings. While the content is most obviously directed towards an English Language Arts classroom, and in this case the model presented is intended to be taught in an eighth-grade classroom, teachers can use the content here to examine the path of urbanization and its broader socio-political effects.
In teaching poetry, there are three prongs of analysis that I will focus on in this unit: the use of figurative language, the forms and structures of poetry, and finally, understanding poetry as performance (which includes both spoken word, slam poetry, and video poetry). Students will employ close reading skills to interpret texts, focusing on one of the three key areas in their analyses. Learning activities will include students identifying significant moments in the text, analyzing the significance of a single word on a poem’s meaning, and comparing and contrasting written and performed/spoken forms of a poem. Throughout the unit, special focus will be given on the sound of the poem, seen through the lens of figurative language, structure, or performance (or a combination of all three). As a way to expand their own fluency and comprehension skills, students will see the teacher (or in some cases, a recording of the poet) reading the poem aloud, and likewise be expected to themselves read poems aloud for the class. Sounds and rhythm will be used to understand, for example, the impact that a line break or punctuation might have on certain parts of the text, or how sound can be used to highlight and emphasize certain words. Focusing on the oral and sonic aspects of poetry will alleviate some of the fear and apprehension that students find with poetry. By the time students reach eighth grade, most are tentatively familiar with poetry as a literary form, but find it difficult and inaccessible. Sound will serve as an entry point into better understanding the deeper intricacies of poetry.
In addition to reading and interpreting poetry, students will be asked to contribute creatively to the themes and ideas discussed in the shared readings. There will be two smaller projects, the first where students are asked to perform one of the poems we have read together in class (or one of their own choosing) and read it aloud in front of the class as a performance. Following this performance, students will then reflect on the experience of reciting and performing another’s work aloud. Following this project, students will create a visual representation of a different poem from the one they performed. These visual representations will emphasize student choice, where students may draw or paint an image representing the poem, rearrange and erase words from the poem to reinterpret a poem, or create a video to accompany an oral reading of a poem. The cumulative project for the unit will include students creating and performing their own poem that somehow comments on the themes discussed throughout the unit. As a potential extension, some students may also choose to include a visual component to the poems they write. For students to understand the craft of the poet, they must themselves participate in the creative process. By incorporating relevant themes and messages, the power of sound, and visual art into writing poetry, students will not only have a new outlet for personal expression, but will also have a better understanding of the possibilities and potential that both reading and writing poetry can provide.
Unit Objectives
At the start of the unit, students will be tasked with answering the following questions over the duration of their learning. The column on the right aligns these questions with the material covered in Part 1.
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Essential Question
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Learning Objective
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How do poets express “voice” in their poetry?
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Students will be able to define the concept of poetic voice, and understand how different authors employ their craft to elaborate their vision of the city and urban life.
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How does poetic voice reflect the sounds and structure of the city?
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Students will understand and implement analysis of poetry as sound and object.
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How have poetic interpretations of the city changed over time?
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Students will be able to identify and distinguish different styles and movements in poetry, and track them in connection with aesthetic and demographic shifts.
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How do artists use poetry to affect political change?
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Students will be able to use and interpret the political voice in poetry, and the right of poets and residents to the city.
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What does city life mean to you?
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Students will be able to express their ideas through poetry using material learned in the unit.
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Pedagogical Rationale
Fortunately, there is a plethora of academic research focused on the best strategies and methods for teaching poetry. The analyses primarily concern teaching poetry (both reading and writing) in the context of an urban classroom, although many of the findings found here could apply to a wide variety of classrooms. Our purpose in Part 1 was to highlight how considering genre (the city poem), sound, and materiality of poetry are essential to the analysis of poetry, which will be used by students as tools commanding both understandings of poetry and its creation.
Evidence shows that, unfortunately, in Language Arts curricula, poetry is taking a diminishing role. While poetry is covered in the Common Core State Standards for English, there has been in turn a great emphasis on the teaching of non-fiction texts in ELA classrooms. As Edwin Creely notes “this decline [in the teaching of poetry] may be due, in part, to a current focus on more functional notions of literacy in schools, as opposed to creative, performative or personal forms of writing.”36 It is for precisely these reasons that poetry deserves a place of prominence in the classroom: poetry is a crucial outlet for students’ creative expression, and the creative portions of this unit are essential to its execution. Similarly, we must also consider that poetry does indeed have a place in forming crucial literacy skills. For example, using close reading practices, to which poetry is particularly well-suited, with an emphasis on word choice and author’s purpose, builds up student literacy across other content areas and forms of literature.
Two frameworks investigated here have been used to craft this unit. The first comes from Creely, who emphasizes the following four points:
“1. Modelling of reading, writing and performing poetry by educators; 2. Integrating poetry across disciplines and more centrally in the curriculum; 3. Re-centring poetry in regard to where and how students read, write and perform poetry and 4. Challenging traditional notions of what constitutes poetry and proposing instead a more radical and disruptive pedagogy for bringing poetry to the classroom.”37 The multi-disciplinary aspect of this unit, the emphasis on a specific lens for reading poetry, and the use of sound and object as lenses for analyzing poetry will all enhance the student learning experience. The second framework, touched upon in Creely’s fourth consideration, concerns empowering students as agents of change through poetry. Writing specifically about teaching poetry in urban school districts, Maisha Fuller emphasizes the following five points:
- Introduce students to a collaborative workshop model
- Address codeswitching
- Include vocabulary practices – focus on sound, syllables, and reconsidering words
- Share individual truth
- Aspire to push beyond ascribed lives38
Point three in particular stresses that building student agency and creativity relies upon improving their skills as readers. Fuller’s analysis proves that students must engage in the writing of poetry not only to build their literacy skills, but also allows them to apply the skills they will learn over the course of the unit. Jusslin and Hoglund argue that “arts-based responses could promote academic purposes while simultaneously attending to students’ interests, knowledge and previous experiences. Arts-based responses to teaching poetry enable and appreciate affective, emotional and experiential aspects needed for students to feel a connection to poetry.”39 Jusslin and Hoglund specifically mention dance in their research, allowing educators to take a broad approach to artistic interpretations of poetry that students can use in this unit. Valerie Kinlock argues that in teaching poetry, students must “Use their imaginations to be creative, explorative learners who draw on experiential knowledge from their families, communities, and one another to gain skills, learn discipline, and use writing for multiple purposes.” Poetry builds community, and through following a workshop encourages students to support, critique, and construct meaning together. Just like the collaboration we saw among visual artists and poets, students will be offered that same opportunity for collaboration.
Creativity and poetry are acts of social justice. Because students in this unit will see both the city poem and the poetic voice as inherently political acts, and with a curriculum that is rooted in student interest, they will be able to harness the agency that lies in creative meaning-making. To do this effectively “requires listening, and supporting the spaces that further their development as adults who will be responsible for the policies, concepts, and ideas that govern the neighborhoods, cities and nations in which we live.”40
Weekly Plan
The unit, as presented here, is intended to take approximately six weeks of instructional time. The following set follows a more-or-less chronological poetic timeline, starting from antiquity and concluding with the present day. Social Studies teachers might wish to consider using a single week to supplement their curriculum. Teachers should consider including opportunities for independent reading throughout the unit. Suggested poems for students can be found in the section labeled “Resources for Students.” Additionally, further substitutions can be made here. Alternative learning segments might center on a specific city across time periods, or look at a particular artistic movement. Poems which are not marked specifically for upper grade students are of an appropriate level of rigor for all secondary students.
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Week
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Topic Covered, Theme
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Suggested Readings
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1
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Introduction to the Unit
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Selections from Martial’s Epigrams, Selections from Ben Jonson’s Epigrams, Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool”
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2
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The Romantic Divide of Town and Country
Student Project: Recitation/Performance of a Poem
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Walt Whitman “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun”, William Blake “London” and “The Chimney-sweep”, and William Wordsworth “Composed upon Westminster Bridge”
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3
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Modernist Responses to Urbanization
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Carl Sandburg, “Chicago,” T.S. Eliot selections from “The Waste-Land” (Suggested upper grades only), Charles Baudelaire “The Seven Old Men,” Wallace Stevens “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” (Suggested Upper Grades Only)
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4 Option 1
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Making the City Physical New York City (Suggested Upper Grades Only)
Student Project: Artistic Interpretation of a Poem
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Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” Hart Crane “To Brooklyn Bridge”
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4 Option 2
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The Life of Harlem Part 1
Student Project: Artistic Interpretation of a Poem
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Read the entirety of Montage of a Dream Deferred, continued into week 5
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4 Option 3
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The Like of Bronzeville
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Read selections from Brooks’ A Street in Bronzeville.
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5
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The Life of Harlem
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Langston Hughes, selections from Montage of a Dream Deferred, “Come to the Waldorf-Astoria”
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6
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Contemporary Poetry
Final Poetry Project
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Elizabeth Acevedo “You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon,” Terrance Hayes “New York Poem” Jamaal May “There are Birds Here”
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Sample Lesson Plans and Activities
Lesson 1
In this lesson, students will engage in a close reading activity using Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool.” Students will read the poem several times, first silently, then out loud. Lesson 2 builds upon this first lesson, and the two should be taught in close sequence. These two lessons should come fairly early in the unit, as an introduction to a sort of “slice-of-life” city poem.
Objective: Students will be able to interpret how the form and structure of “We Real Cool” informs its sound and meaning.
Do-Now: The Do-Now is a quick way for students to engage with the content and material of the lesson before it begins, allowing them to activate crucial background knowledge and relate it to the lesson. Students should immediately work on the Do-Now upon entering in the classroom, either in a dedicated notebook or on a loose piece of paper. Students will have the first five minutes of class to answer the question silently and on their own, and they will have three minutes to discuss their answers with their peers in a whole-class discussion. Adjust this question to fit the particular needs of your classroom. In this lesson, students will answer: “How do you define cool? How might other people define it? Have you ever done something to be cool?
Background Context: As needed, include necessary background information for Gwendolyn Brooks, the history of Bronzeville (a key cultural center of the city of Chicago, especially in the early 20th century) and the Great Migration (the name given to the mass movement of African Americans northward to cities like Chicago). Brooks wrote the poem in 1959, and was inspired to write the poem when she saw a large group of boys in a local pool hall. This section of the lesson can be expanded, and might include students exploring photographic images of 20th century Bronzeville, notes on jazz music and its effect on poetry, along with maps and other historic documents. Brook’s poem can be described here as a “slice of life” of what Bronzeville was like in the late 1950s. Specific photographic resources and other materials on Bronzeville can be found in the “resources” section.
Close Reading: Pass out a copy of the poem to students, and include a set of guided notes for students to use and respond to questions as is appropriate for the duration of the lesson. Close Reading is a teaching strategy that emphasizes analyzing small portions of text with a specific focus. Students will be analyzing the sounds of the poem alongside its unique textual structure. They will read the poem several times, with each subsequent reading increasing in rigor as students identify meaningful patterns and forms within the poem. After each reading, give students adequate time to respond independently to the close reading question. Then, use a routine for classroom discussion such as the “turn-and-talk” for students to share their answer with peers. Here, students will have five minutes to write, two minutes to discuss their answer with the peer seated closest to them, and then each peer group will have three minutes to share with the entire class.
First Read: Students will read the poem silently and on their own. They will answer the question “What are your first impressions of what the poem is about?” Students are not expected to have a perfect understanding of the poem at this point in time, and this question serves as a useful Check for Understanding to gauge student responses to the poem.
Second Read: Students will again read the poem silently and on their own, and answer the question “What words stand out to you in the poem? Pay attention to any specific sounds or words that are repeated, and circle the words you chose.” Follow the same discussion protocol used for the first reading of the poem. If students do not bring it up, mention the rhymes repeated in couplets in most lines, such as “cool” and school”, and the repletion of initial word sounds, such as “sing sin.”
Third Read: Follow the same protocol set previously, this time students answering “What do you notice about the form and structure of the text? Consider line breaks and line length in your answer.” If not mentioned, bring up the repetition of the word “we” at the end of each line, the basic three word pattern followed by most lines, and the punchy final two word line “die soon.”
Fourth Read: This time, have a student read the poem aloud for the class. Students will answer “What is the difference between reading the poem silently and hearing it out loud?” In the discussion that follows, ask the student who read the poem aloud to share their thought processes in completing the task.
Fifth and final read: Have another student read the text aloud. This final question has two parts. Students will answer “How are the pool players depicted in the poem? How are sound, poetic voice, and text structures used in the poem to enrich that depiction? Again, follow-up with focused discussion on the key questions discussed here.
The remaining time should be used for students to openly discuss the poem’s contents and ideas. Teachers should consider connections to jazz music as seen in the poem’s structure and rhythm, and reinforce any historical context that might benefit students’ interpretation. Encourage students likewise to connect the messages of the poem with their own knowledge and experiences.
Lesson 2
Lesson 2 should follow the lesson above on “We Real Cool.” In this lesson, students will begin to experiment with visual interpretations of the poem.
Objective: Students will be able to identify differences between the text and video forms of the poem, and interpret how the differences affect meanings.
Do-Now: Follow a similar protocol as Lesson 1. Start with eight minutes time to work silently and independently, and five minutes to share responses. Students are asked to do the following: “Reread Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool,” and create an image/doodle based on the text.” Allow students creative license with how they create their images. In the discussion that follows, discuss the process of artistic interpretation that students here connected with particular aspects of the meaning, sound, and presentation of “We Real Cool” and used that in their own image. Emphasize some of the potential differences between different student images, with each based on the artist’s own understanding of the subject matter.
Next, have students watch the video version of the poem produced by the Poetry Foundation. A link can be found in the resources section of the unit. The video runs about six minutes and includes audio of Brooks herself explaining the background on the poem and its composition, followed by Brooks reading the poem. The video, featuring music throughout, concludes with a short jazz composition accompanying the video, using the text of the poem as its lyrics.
After viewing the video, students will participate in a Socratic Seminar style discussion. For this style of discussion, ensure that students are in a circle or other arrangement which enables them to easily see and hear their peers. Discuss ground-rules and basic expectations with students for the discussion, and that this is a dialogue, not a debate. Everyone is welcome to offer their own ideas and interpretations, but do not have to refute their classmates’ ideas. Students’ ideas and responses should both build upon and respond to peers’ contributions. Teachers can break the class into several smaller groups or keep one whole-class discussion group, and may serve as the facilitator or assign the role to a student. Students should be taking notes during the discussion, and making references to both the text of the poem as well as the video in their responses. The following questions serve to spearhead discussion, but good facilitation follows no predetermined path:
How does the interpretation of the poem in the video differ from your own expectations?
Did anything strike you about how Brooks read the poem? If you read (or have read) the poem aloud, would (or did) you read it the same way?
How does the inclusion of music affect our reading of the poem?
Did any visuals stand out to you? Why do you think the film-makers included those visuals?
Towards the beginning of the video, Brooks explains some of her process and inspirations writing the poem. Did anything surprise you here? Did this influence your interpretation of the poem?
Why do you think the film-makers used paper puppets? How does this medium influence the visuals on the screen?
How would you film this poem? What about other poems we will have read in class?
How does the video accentuate Brooks’ poetic voice?
After wrapping up the discussion, give students the remainder of the class time to write down their two largest takeaways from the discussion, and collect this to assess student understanding.
Lesson 3
This lesson comes from the second week of the weekly plan, where students will compare and contrast different perspectives of life in the city through the urban poem. By this time, students should have already read selections from some of the English Romantic poets, especially those critical of urban life. William Wordsworth’s “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” is a particularly useful counterpoint to Walt Whitman’s view of Manhattan in “Give Me the Silent Sun.”
Objectives: Students will be able to analyze the use of imagery as a figurative device in “Give Me the Silent Sun.” Students will be able to compare and contrast the ideas and forms between two different poets.
Do-Now: Allow students five minutes for writing their responses, and five minutes for discussion. “Where would you rather spend the day, exploring a new city or exploring the wilderness? Why?”
Model the process of analyzing imagery with students. Emphasize that imagery, as a figurative device, is not limited just to visuals, but includes sound, touch, end even taste. Share examples with students from Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” or Percy Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind.” Both poems which make excellent use of imagery, while also allowing students to understand the Romantic deep love of nature in contrast to the disdain for urban life. Explain how the use of imagery allows readers to better visualize and understand the message the poem is trying to convey. Given that many of the poems that students are reading in this unit are about cities, real, physical places, it is especially important that they are able to understand imagery as a literary tool.
Background Context: Before reading “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun,” review student background knowledge of the Civil War. The poem is explicitly set during the war years, and ensure that you give necessary background information about Whitman’s career as journalist and time working as a nurse during the war.
Have a student read the poem aloud for the class. Then divide the class into two groups. Each group will be tasked with looking at one of the two sections of “Give me the splendid silent sun.” The first section is a celebration of nature, the second a celebration of the city. Students must first identify examples of imagery (and whether it is visual, auditory, tactile, or gustatory imagery), then they must analyze and answer what specifically attracts the voice of the poet to either the city or to nature in that section (e.g. What does Whitman love most about Manhattan?)
The groups will then join together as a whole class, and prepared with evidence from the text, share their findings with the other group. An open seven-minute discussion should follow. Students then respond, first on their own on a piece of paper, and then as a class in discussion, to the following question: “Why does Whitman celebrate nature in the first part of the poem, but then seemingly reject it in the second? Are the two points of view at odds with each other?”
Depending upon the length of your class, this protocol can be used again as a tool to compare and contrast different poems. One group might analyze Wordsworth’s perspective in “Westminster Bridge,” the other Whitman, and perhaps even a third group with William Blake, with each group presenting the individual poet’s view towards nature or the city, and then finally doing the analytical work of comparing and contrasting in the whole group discussion. Similarly, have students examine literary forms and devices used in the poems, to see, for example, how Whitman’s use of free verse compares next to the English Romantics use of more structured poetic forms.
Finally, return back to the Do-Now question that the class started this lesson with, and encourage students to write their own lines of poetry that celebrate what they love about nature or the city. Students may then share their lines with the rest of the class.
Final Project
This section contains the instructions as presented to students for the final poetry project.
Over the course of this unit, we have read a wide range and variety of poems that examined life in the city, from its buildings to the people who walk its streets. We have also both witnessed and participated in experiments with sound, visual art, and video in these poems. You will take what you have learned, and create your own interpretation of the city.
You are tasked with writing at least 25 lines of poetry that deal with urban life. You may choose to write one longer poem or write several smaller poems. Your poem does not have to rhyme or follow any mandated structure, but you should consider how you will employ rhythm, sound, and structure in your poem. Be sure that you include at least two examples of figurative language, such as simile, metaphor, personification, or imagery in your poem.
You will read the poem for the class. You will choose one of the following options to accompany the reading of your poem: a piece of visual art that you make; a video, either that you film yourself or includes a montage of photography; instrumental music.
In addition to completing your poem, you will prepare a two-page artist’s statement. In the statement, you will describe what the process of writing the poem was like, the decisions that you made along the way, and the influences from this unit or your own reading that shaped your writing. You should also explain the image/music you chose to accompany your poem.
You will have two days in class to draft your poem. On day three, you will read the poems of two of your peers, with all students providing constructive and supportive feedback on the other poems. Using that feedback, you will have one day to finish your poem. The remaining two days will be dedicated to working on your artist’s statement. When presenting your poem, your peers will give you two pieces of feedback.
